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Works Thomas Girtin and Joseph Mallord William Turner after (?) Edward Dayes

An Unidentified Waterfall

1794 - 1797

 

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after (?) Edward Dayes (1763-1804)
Title
  • An Unidentified Waterfall
Date
1794 - 1797
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
Dimensions
27.6 × 39.1 cm, 10 ⅞ × 15 ⅜ in
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy
Subject Terms
Unidentified Landscape; Waterfall Scenery

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0805
Description Source(s)
Viewed in May 2025

Provenance

Paul Mellon (1907–99); presented to the Center, 1977

Exhibition History

New Haven, 2025 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner and Thomas Girtin

About this Work

This view of an unidentified waterfall has been attributed to Edward Dayes (1763–1804) but was in all likelihood made at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) where Girtin and his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797. Their task, as they recalled to the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821), was to copy ‘the outlines or unfinished drawings of’ principally John Robert Cozens (1752–97), but other artists too, including Girtin’s master, Dayes. The ‘finished drawings’ they were commissioned to produce were the result of a strict division of labour: ‘Girtin drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. As the young artists reported, ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’ with Turner receiving ‘3s. 6d each night’ whilst ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).1The outcome of their joint labours was substantial, amounting to several hundred drawings of continental subjects primarily taken from outlines by Cozens and a smaller number of views of landscapes in Wales and the Lake District some of which can be identified as being produced after compositions by Dayes.

Tree-lined waterfalls feature extensively in the drawings that Girtin and Turner executed for Monro and there are no less than eight views of the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland all taken from sketches by Cozens. Although works such as The Reichenbach Falls, the Ninth View and Final Stage (TG0475) bear some resemblance to this unidentified scene, a closer visual parallel is with the lower stage of the falls at Rhaeadr in Powys in Mid Wales, not least as Dayes painted the subject himself (see figure 1). Indeed, the two drawings have arguably enough in common for there to be a possibility that they shared the same source and that the differences therefore resulted from Girtin’s (mis)interpretation of a slight and sketchy original by Dayes. With no inscription to guide us, however, there is no way to confirm this.

The fact that the work was once attributed to Dayes does not in itself establish its source; rather, it reflects the profound influence that the older man had on both his former apprentice and on Turner who would have seen many examples of his work at Monro’s home.2 Of the two steps in the production of a Monro School copy it is the pencil work that marks this work as clearly not by Dayes. Thus, although it must be admitted that the drawing is sharper in the outline than was usually the case with Girtin, there are some characteristically attractive and inventive passages visible in the lightly washed areas to the right of the falls. In turn, whilst Dayes’ influence is apparent across the sheet, Turner’s hand shines through in the playful silhouette of the trees to the left and in the way that significant areas of the water and the rocks to the right are left untouched to function as highlights. I missed this work during the initial stages of the creation of this website but having now seen it first hand a joint attribution to Girtin and Turner feels right.

1794 - 1797

The Reichenbach Falls, the Ninth View and Final Stage

TG0475

by Greg Smith

Footnotes

  1. 1 The full diary entry, giving crucial details of the artists’ work at Monro’s house, is transcribed in the Documents section of the Archive (1798 – Item 2).
  2. 2 Monro’s posthumous sale includes many more works by Dayes than by Cozens, though it is possible that some of the sketch material was acquired from sales after the artist’s suicide in 1804 (see King, 3 April 1806).

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