This view of boats on the quayside at Dover, like the similar composition in the Turner Bequest (TG0803), is one of as many as a hundred views of the town and its environs that were produced at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). Here Girtin and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797, to copy ‘the outlines or unfinished drawings of’ principally John Robert Cozens (1752–97), but other artists too, including the patron’s neighbour, the amateur John Henderson (1764–1843), who lent his ‘outlines for this purpose’ (Farington, Diary, 30 December 1794). Henderson visited Dover in the autumn of 1794 and the ‘outlines of Shipping & Boats’ he made there, described by the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) as ‘Very ingenious & careful’, provided the basis for a substantial number of copies commissioned from Girtin and Turner by Monro (Farington, Diary, 1 December 1795). As with the copies the artists made after the sketches of Cozens, ‘Girtin drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’, with Turner receiving ‘3s. 6d each night’ though ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).¹

Girtin is not known to have visited Dover and all of his views of the town were copied after other artists, including his master, Edward Dayes (1763–1804). However, whilst Turner travelled to the port in 1793 and executed a series of studio watercolours after his own sketches, the majority of the Dover subjects sold from Monro’s collection were still produced after secondary sources. In this case, the watercolour was copied from a composition by Henderson that is known from a soft-ground etching that he dated 28 August 1794 (see the source image above). This was presumably made from his own on-the-spot sketch, and it may have been this untraced drawing that the Monro School artists worked from, rather than the print (Finberg, 1906, p.192); indeed, the 1794 date on the latter probably refers to the production of the sketch rather than the etching. It is important to stress this point, because it has been suggested by the British Museum that this watercolour was made after the Henderson pencil drawing that was used as the basis for Dover Harbour: Small Boats by the Quay (see the source image for TG0803) and that the author of this copy was therefore responsible for improving the composition by changing the position of the boats and removing the vessels in the foreground. As countless Monro School copies show, Girtin and Turner simply did not undertake such wholesale changes to their source material, and the differences between the two Monro School watercolours of Dover harbour can be more satisfactorily explained by the suggestion that Henderson produced two similar views of the harbour, but from alternative angles, one of which is missing.

The attribution of the work has also seen a degree of uncertainty following Alexander Finberg’s original suggestion that, although the watercolour is not directly related to the other view of the harbour (TG0803), it is ‘certainly by Turner’, and this continues to be the opinion of the British Museum today (Finberg, 1906, p.191). Andrew Wilton was surely right when, in his pioneering article ‘The “Monro School” Question’, he suggested that the work follows the artists’ typical practice at Monro’s and that the colour was added by Turner to ‘an outline probably by Girtin’, though I would remove the qualifying prefix ‘probably’ (Wilton, 1984a, p.23). The quality of the pencil work, which is evident in the admittedly small areas left untouched as highlights, suggests that Girtin was involved in the work’s production, albeit simply copying Henderson’s outline, but even here the lines are varied in touch and inventive in detail. It was Turner’s more onerous task, employing just a few washes of blue and grey, to produce a commodity somewhere between an on-the-spot sketch and a finished watercolour, or as close as could be achieved in the few night-time hours available to him at Monro’s house. Understanding the constraints under which the artist worked at Monro’s house is crucial, I suggest, to a fair assessment of the Monro school copies, as judgements based too much on issues of quality lead to sometimes bizarre suggestions, such as that of the late Eric Shanes, who argued that the work was by Henderson himself with the help of Turner in some of its more successful areas (Shanes, 2016b).

 Another version of the work in the collection of Harvard Art Museums (see figure 1), has again been attributed to Turner, but this is clearly untenable as although the pencil work is not unlike Girtin’s, the quality of the colour washes is very poor. The watercolour employs the classic palette of blues and greys associated with Dayes, and whilst an attribution to Girtin’s teacher cannot entirely be ruled out, the fact that it measures 19.7 × 26.5 cm (7 ¾ × 10 ⅜ in) – that is, close to the size of the soft-ground etching, suggests an alternative. A number of Monro School Dover subjects have been attributed to John Henderson himself, including Dover Inner Harbour (TG0814 figure 1) and I wonder if this is an other example of his work and that it relates to the production of his soft-ground etching in some way.

1795 - 1796

Dover Harbour: Small Boats by the Quay

TG0803

1795 - 1796

Dover Harbour: Small Boats by the Quay

TG0803

1795 - 1796

Dover Harbour: Small Boats by the Quay

TG0803

1795 - 1796

Warehouses with Shipping in Dover Harbour

TG0814