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Works Thomas Girtin and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner after (?) James Moore

Kenilworth Castle: Seen from the South East

1794 - 1797

Primary Image: TG0250a: Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after (?) James Moore (1762–99), Kenilworth Castle: The View from the South East, Kenilworth Castle: The View from the South East

Photo courtesy of Bonhams

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after (?) James Moore (1762-1799)
Title
  • Kenilworth Castle: Seen from the South East
Date
1794 - 1797
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
Dimensions
26.5 × 37 cm, 10 ⅜ × 14 ⁹⁄₁₆ in
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy; Work after an Amateur Artist
Subject Terms
The Midlands; Castle Ruins

Collection
Versions
Kenilworth Castle: The View from the South (TG0250)
Catalogue Number
TG0250a
Description Source(s)
Viewed in December 2024

Provenance

Hubert Lavre Butler (1858-1937); Charles Hubert Archibald Butler (1901–74); Hubert Arthur James Butler (1937–2016); then by descent; Bonhams, 4 December 2024, lot 23 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner, unsold

About this Work

Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak argued that the slightly smaller version of this composition (TG0250) was ‘possibly redrawn’ from one of the ‘pencil studies’ produced by Girtin on the tour of the Midland counties that he undertook in the company of his first significant patron, the amateur artist and antiquarian James Moore (1762–99), in the summer of 1794 (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.150). However, there is no proof that the two men visited either Kenilworth or nearby Warwick, and it looks increasingly likely that both these watercolours and another view of the castle (TG0288) were produced after the work of another artist and given the details of the provenance of TG0250 it is likely to have been Moore himself, who is known from dated drawings as having visited the imposing ruins in October 1789. Girtin certainly appears to have used two of Moore’s Kenilworth sketches from that earlier tour as the basis for his own pencil drawings (TG0128 and TG0153) and although this watercolour is slightly larger than TG0250, dispenses with part of the foreground, and truncates the composition to the right to bring the building into greater prominence, an untraced Moore source is again the likeliest basis for the composition.

1787, graphite, watercolour and pen and ink on paper, 17 × 23 cm, 6 ¹¹/16 × 9 in. Private Collection (Olympia Auctions, 11 October 2023, lot 220).

The drawing was catalogued recently as being by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) at its first public appearance and the auction catalogue (Bonhams, 4 December 2024, lot 23) linked it to the work he produced at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). The catalogue does not provide an early provenance for the work but there is nonetheless some evidence that it came from Monro’s collection. Three views of Kenilworth by Turner are recorded in Monro’s posthumous sale in 1833 (Christie’s, 26 June 1833, lots 91, 99 and 115) none of which have yet been accounted for. Another view of Kenilworth, this time by Thomas Hearne (1744–1817), was sold a few days later (Christie's, 2 July 1833, lot 100) and were it not for the Moore provenance of the smaller version of this composition one might readily conclude that it was a Hearne drawing from Monro’s collection that provided the source for both works. A similar predominantly monochrome view of Kenilworth by Hearne signed and dated 1787 (see figure 1), was taken from a position only a few metres further to the east, though there are sufficient differences in detail to be reasonably sure that it was not the source for either Monro School drawing. The attention of any artist travelling to Kenilworth along the road to the south would no doubt have been attracted by such an advantageous view of the castle.

The previous attribution of the watercolour to Turner alone follows the traditional pattern by which Monro school drawings are given to the better-known artist despite the fact the two young watercolourists gave the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) a detailed account of their collaborations. Namely, that they had been engaged by Monro across three winters to make ‘finished drawings’ from ‘the outlines or unfinished drawings’ of other artists following a strict division of labour: ‘Girtin drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).1 In this case it is actually Girtin’s contribution that is the clearer cut as his inventive pencil work, with its variety of touch and crisp detail particularly in the architecture, shows up prominently through the washes of colour. In contrast, the restricted range of essentially monochrome tones include a number of formulaic passages particularly in the foreground vegetation. This does not strike me as being Turner at his most inventive, though the way that the light falls on the structure’s massive walls creating a sense of depth despite the economy of touch employed is arguably enough to suggest that the drawing is the outcome of the collaborative process outlined by the artists to Farington.

(?) 1795

Kenilworth Castle: The View from the South

TG0250

1794 - 1795

The Ruins of the Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle

TG0288

(?) 1795

Kenilworth Castle: The View from the South

TG0250

1792 - 1793

The Great Keep, Kenilworth Castle

TG0128

1792 - 1793

The Great Keep, Kenilworth Castle, with Leicester’s Gatehouse in the Distance

TG0153

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

Footnotes

  1. 1 The full diary entry, giving crucial details of the artists’ work at Monro’s house, is transcribed in full in the Documents section of the Archive (1798 – Item 2).

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