This view of the ruined abbey church in the Scottish Border town of Melrose was long attributed to Girtin’s contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), and, though it is now generally accepted to be by Girtin, Tom Girtin (1913–94) stated that ‘I still think this is by Turner’ (Girtin Archive, 32). I have some sympathy with the view, though not because I think Turner painted the watercolour but rather because there is something unsatisfactory about this image of one of Scotland’s finest Gothic monuments that does not quite do justice to the subject. In this respect, it is instructive to compare the work with another view of the exterior of Melrose that Girtin painted around 1793 for his earliest patron, the antiquarian James Moore (1762–99) (TG0196), which he worked up from a drawing that the amateur had produced on his own visit to Melrose in 1792 (see TG0196 figure 1). There is no question that Girtin’s later view of Melrose benefited greatly from being painted from his own, untraced, sketch, but it still shares with the earlier watercolour a certain earnestness to include everything – to add detail to detail to create a record of a building rather than to produce an attractive work in its own right. In contrast to the bulk of the views of the nation’s great Gothic monuments that Girtin produced subsequent to the tour, there is no attempt to dramatise the scene by cutting the view in a novel way or to seek out a new angle from which to show the building, and as a result the image seems a little bland. This is so much the case that I have toyed with the idea that it might also have been produced after a drawing by Moore. However, the firm grasp of the complex perspective of the building is arguably beyond the amateur’s capabilities, and the manner in which we can look into the building and get a real sense of depth ultimately convinces me that this is a work of about 1797–98 made from a Girtin on-the-spot sketch. Perhaps the problem lies with the artist’s choice of a smooth wove paper over the rougher cartridges that he was generally using by this date, which undermines the broader effects he increasingly looked to create. I think this is supposed to be an evening effect, as indicated by the lengthy shadow cast by the reclining figure, but the distribution of light and shade across the building is not entirely consistent with that. Moreover, the effect of the evening light means that the colour of the stone has taken on a rather jaundiced appearance that bears little resemblance to the rich red hue of the sandstone from which the abbey is built, and in other circumstances this might again raise the question of whether the artist had in fact visited the site when he painted this work.

Whilst the drawing was still attributed to Turner it was the subject of an impressive lithograph by William Simpson (1823–99). The print (see print after, above) was published in 1852 by the art dealer Ernest Gambart (1814–1902) and he may well have owned the work at the time.

(?) 1794

Melrose Abbey, from the South West

TG0196