- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) William Pearson (1772-1849)
- Title
-
- Berry Pomeroy Castle
- Date
- 1798 - 1803
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 25.4 × 34.6 cm, 10 × 13 ⅝ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Castle Ruins; River Scenery; The West Country: Devon and Dorset
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1271
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 242i as by Thomas Girtin; '1797-8'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74); then by descent to George Wyndham Hog Girtin (1835–1911) (lent to London, 1875); by a settlement to his sister, Julia Hog Cooper (née Girtin) (1839–1904); her sale, Davis, Castleton, Sherborne, 2 December 1884, lot 52; bought by 'Pallant'; H. T. Heaviside (lent to London, 1887); J. Heaviside; Foster's, 3 June 1908, lot 43; bought by 'Vicars', £1 1s; bought by J. Palser & Sons (stock no.16515); bought 18 November 1909 and presented to Sabina Girtin, née Cooper (1878–1959) by friends; Tom Girtin (1913–94); bought by John Baskett on behalf of Paul Mellon (1907–99), 1970; presented to the Center, 1975
Exhibition History
London, 1875, no.70 as by Thomas Girtin and 'Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798'; London, 1887, no.611; London, 1962a, no.129; New Haven, 1986a, no.122 as ’A copy, possibly by William Pearson’
Bibliography
Mayne, 1949, p.47; Flett, 1981, pp.142–43; YCBA Online as 'Unknown Artist, after' Thomas Girtin (Accessed 15/09/2022)
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1797 West Country Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
The Ruined Chancel, Netley Abbey
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
The Gateway of the Bishop's Palace, Wells
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
A Distant View of Southampton
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Bursledon Ferry on the River Hamble, near Southampton
Private Collection
The Hamble River, near Southampton
Private Collection
A Cliff-Top View, Probably on the Coast of Dorset
Leeds Art Gallery
The Market Rooms, Weymouth
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Private Collection
The Tithe Barn, Abbotsbury
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Leeds Art Gallery
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Private Collection
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Private Collection
A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Above Lyme Regis, Looking across Marshwood Vale
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
The Interior of Exeter Cathedral, Looking from the Nave
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter, from Trew’s Weir
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter Cathedral, from the South
Koriyama City Museum of Art
On the River Exe, Exeter
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Shaldon, Seen from Teignmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear, from Dartmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Sharpham House on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
Okehampton Castle, from the West Okement River
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Cattle by a River with a Castle Beyond, Probably Okehampton Castle
Private Collection
The Estuary of the River Taw
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Wells Cathedral, from the Moat of the Bishop's Palace
Private Collection
St Vincent's Rocks from Nightingale Valley, near Bristol
Private Collection
Bristol Cathedral, from College Green
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Bristol: St Mary Redcliffe, from the Harbour
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Bristol Harbour and St Mary Redcliffe
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Ships in a Harbour, Possibly at Bristol
Harewood House, Yorkshire
An Unidentified Estuary, Probably in the West Country
Tate, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly a West-Country Tor
Tate, London
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
A House Reflected in the Waters of an Estuary
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
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About this Work
This badly faded view of Berry Pomeroy Castle in Devon was attributed to Girtin by Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak in their catalogue of the artist’s watercolours, and they dated it to 1797–98 – that is, to the immediate aftermath of his West Country tour (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.166). They were presumably inclined to overlook the work’s manifest weaknesses because it had been in the ownership of the family since the time of the artist’s son, Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74). However, not all of the watercolours owned by Thomas Calvert came from his father’s studio, and he also purchased works of varying degrees of authenticity on the open market. Therefore, when Susan Morris came to catalogue the watercolour after it entered the collection of Paul Mellon (1907–99), she understandably included it in the section of ‘Drawings Formerly Attributed to Thomas Girtin’ as a ‘copy, possibly by William Pearson’ (Morris, 1986, p.51). The work is clearly not by Girtin, but I am not sure about the second part of Morris’ conclusion, namely that the work was copied from the version of the composition now in a private collection in Norfolk (TG1269). The intriguing thing about this otherwise dull replica is that whilst it does indeed copy elements of the smaller version of the work, including the seated figure and the disposition of the trees to the left, it also duplicates a prominent and unique feature of the recently discovered watercolour that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798 (TG1270) – the form of the dead tree to the right. The point is that there are only a few people who might have had access either to both of Girtin’s watercolours or to the original sketch from which the artist worked his variants of the composition, and Morris’ suggestion of William Pearson (1772–1849) as the author of the copy seems a sensible one. Indeed, the fact that the work has faded in the way it has may mean that the copyist also employed Girtin’s later, and more fugitive, palette.
1798 - 1799
Berry Pomeroy Castle
TG1269
1797 - 1798
Berry Pomeroy Castle
TG1270