This sadly faded though still compelling watercolour shows Kirkstall Abbey, near Leeds, from Kirkstall Bridge, with the river Aire in the foreground. Although the work was exhibited in 1875 as a morning scene (London, 1875, no.113), the title was changed to ‘Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire: Evening’, only finally to be corrected by David Hill in 1999 in the catalogue of the Thomas Girtin: Genius in the North exhibition. He noted that the view of the ruined abbey, looking north, includes the early morning sunlight slanting in from the east, and that the watercolour is therefore effectively a ‘pendant’ to Kirkstall Abbey, from the Canal, Evening (TG1637), ‘contrasting morning with evening, the river with the canal, and dark skies with light’ (Hill, 1999, p.30). It is a challenge to explain how it is that a watercolour that has faded so badly that the sky has lost much of its dramatic impact, and large areas of foliage and meadow are now just a neutral earth tint, can nonetheless continue to evoke powerful associations. In part, it may be that the faded, even tone of the watercolour has actually enhanced the tranquillity of a scene that, very much in contrast with the view today, was essentially agricultural in character. The monastic buildings of the Cistercian abbey were thus used to house livestock, whilst the lay brothers’ building, seen to the left, was a barn, meaning that the herd of cattle shown in the middle ground is not a picturesque invention of the artist but a sign that the site is a working farm. All of this is contrasted with the motif of the remaining part of the crossing tower, silhouetted against the thin shred of light like a tombstone, and it is surely the continuing potency of this evocative image, as much as the mood of the watercolour, that ensures that the work still resonates. Surrounded by a flock of circling birds, and standing defiant and proud above the chaos of ruins and vegetation, the fifteenth-century tower bears witness to the abbey’s rich heyday. In doing so, it addresses the issue of mortality that was expressed in a poem written at about the time of Girtin’s visit, ‘Lines, Addressed to a company of young Persons, whilst viewing the Ruins of Kirkstall Abbey’:

The great projector of these haughty piles,
With all his riches, honours, and renown,
Hides his poor head in dust – and is no more! (Anonymous, 1797b, p.32)

Given that the original (untraced) sketches for all three important Kirkstall watercolours appear to have been made during Girtin’s stay in the nearby mansion of his patron Edward Lascelles (1764–1814) at Harewood, it comes as something of a surprise that none of the drawings were produced either for him or on commission. Indeed, there is compelling evidence that this watercolour was actually executed by Girtin for sale on the open market by Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835), who acted on behalf of the artist in his final years in a role somewhere between agent and dealer. A ‘Kirkstall Abbey’ is listed as one of the watercolours that Reynolds sold, or rather ‘exchanged’, in the immediate aftermath of Girtin’s death in November 1802, when works of this size fetched about £10 (Reynolds, Letter, 1803).¹ The fact that this drawing conforms to the larger of the two standard sizes supplied to Reynolds, 32 × 51.7 cm (12 ⅝ × 20 ⅜ in), and that the work must have been in his possession in order for him to make a mezzotint of the composition (see the first print after, above, Neill & Son, 1883), confirms that the work was not made on commission. The fame of the composition no doubt in part relies upon the print by Reynolds, and a second by William Say (1768–1834) (see the second print after, above), whose mezzotint was published in 1824, when the work was said to be in the celebrated collection of Benjamin Godfrey Windus (1790–1867). Making allowances for the fact that the rich tonal effects of mezzotint tend to add an extra drama to the lighting of a landscape subject, both prints appear to record a watercolour that had not at that stage suffered so substantially from fading. The sky, in particular, which has long since turned to an undifferentiated monochrome in the watercolour, is clearly defined in both prints, which therefore give us better impressions of the early morning effect identified by Hill.

On a technical note, the paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support used by Girtin as an off-white laid drawing cartridge paper by an unknown Dutch manufacturer, possibly Adriaan Rogge (1732–1816) (Bower, 2002, p.139; Bower, Report). This is the same paper that Girtin used for A Mountain View, near Beddgelert (TG1322) and A View on the River Wharfe (TG1674). The work’s faded condition allows us to make out what is, for Girtin, a rare change of mind: three cows on the far bank have re-emerged as pencil outlines from under the wash used to depict the meadow.