- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- St Paul’s Cathedral, from the Thames
- Date
- 1796 - 1797
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 22.5 × 16.5 cm, 8 ⅞ × 6 ½ in
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- London and Environs; London Architecture; The River Thames
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1863a
- Description Source(s)
- Online Catalogue
Provenance
Sir Walter Henry Bromley Davenport (1903–89); his sale, Christie's, 16 June 1970, lot 122 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons, 140 gns; bought by Ernest Robert Heinzer (1943–2022); bequeathed to the Museum, 2023
Exhibition History
Berkeley, 1975, no.6 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner
Bibliography
Hill, 1993, pp.14–15 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner
Place depicted
Other entries in London and the Home Counties, Together with Miscellaneous Studies and Views
Windsor Castle, from the River Thames
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
Great Bookham Church, from the East
Private Collection, Norfolk
Windsor Park and Castle, from Snow Hill
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (National Trust)
The Gateway, St Albans Abbey
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Albans Abbey, from the North West
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
St Albans Abbey, from the North West
Private Collection
An Interior View of St Albans Abbey, from the Crossing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
The Interior of St Albans Abbey
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery
Windsor Castle and the Great Park, from the South West
Private Collection, Norfolk
Windsor Great Park: Herne’s Oak with a Herd of Deer
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Stags Fighting amongst a Herd of Deer in Windsor Great Park, with the Castle in the Distance
Private Collection
A Herd of Deer in Richmond Park
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section One: Somerset House to Blackfriars Bridge
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Two: The Surrey Bank
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Three: Westminster Bridge to York Stairs
Private Collection
Westminster, from the West Corner of the Adelphi Terrace
Private Collection
The Thames with St Paul's and Blackfriars Bridge
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Shipping on the Thames, Looking down Limehouse Reach towards Greenwich, with the Church of St Alfege in the Distance
Private Collection
A Haystack on a Farm, on the Road to Harrow-on-the-Hill
Private Collection
A Panoramic Landscape, near Norwood
Private Collection
Westminster Abbey, Seen from Green Park and the Queen's Basin
National Gallery of Art, Washington
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Paul's Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Untraced Works
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Private Collection
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
A River Scene, with Boats
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
An Imaginary Coast Scene with the Horizontal Air Mill at Battersea
Private Collection
London: The Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
Turver’s Farm, Radwinter
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Farm with an Unidentified Windmill
Private Collection
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Private Collection, Norfolk
Trees and Pond, Said to Be near Bromley; A Slight Sketch of a Man
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection
The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Stone-next-Dartford
British Museum, London
A Farmhouse in a Woodland Setting, Said to Be in Devon
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Farm Buildings, Probably in Surrey
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Tintern Village, Seen across the Forge Pond, Formerly Known as ‘The Mill-Pond’
Private Collection
A Picturesque House Overlooking a River, with Distant Windmills
Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington
The West End of an Unidentified Church
Private Collection
Effingham Churchyard, Formerly Known as 'A Country Churchyard'
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
An Unidentified Windmill, Probably in Lambeth
Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston
Unidentified Buildings, Herne Hill
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Study of a Sailor on Board a Ship; A Fishing Boat
Private Collection
The Frozen Watermill, from William Cowper's The Task
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Unidentified Subject, Probably from James Macpherson’s Poems of Ossian
Tate, London
The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
The Archangel Gabriel Awaiting Night, from John Milton's Paradise Lost
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Study of a Woman Reading; A Slight Study of a Seated Woman
Private Collection
Portrait Study of a Man, Said to Be the Artist George Barret the Younger
Private Collection
A Study of a Lion from the Tower of London
Private Collection
An Open Field with a Cart and Horses, Known as ‘The Carter’
British Museum, London
A Church Seen across Fields, with Another Sketch Depicting a Woman
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
A Landscape with Figures by Railings
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Self-Portrait of the Artist at Work
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, with a Church amongst Trees
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Cottage and a Windmill Surrounded by Trees
Private Collection
St Paul’s Cathedral, from the Thames
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Head of a Youth, Here Identified as Joseph Mallord William Turner
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
Private Collection
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About this Work
This study of part of the southern flank of St Paul’s Cathedral, taken from the river Thames close to the northern end of Blackfriars Bridge, was attributed to Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) when it was last seen in a public exhibition in 1975 (Berkeley, 1975, no.6). Since then the drawing has been reattributed to Girtin by Andrew Wilton, and, according to a note in the Girtin Archive (12/3), this change was supported by Tom Girtin (1913–94), who added an image of the work to a manuscript copy of the catalogue of the artist’s works that his father, Thomas Girtin (1874–1960), created. David Hill, however, returned the attribution of the drawing to Turner in his book Turner on the Thames, making much of the effective way in which the author of the work ignored the wide sweep of the river at this point, opting instead to show a narrow angle that includes just the western part of St Paul’s within an upright format. As Hill notes, this has the effect of emphasising the sheer bulk of the cathedral with an ‘arresting immediacy of engagement’, something that can be easily lost when depicting the full length of the building from the south (Hill, 1993, pp.14–15).
The acquisition of the drawing by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the publication of a good quality image online has finally settled the question of the attribution, however. The impressive range of touches, varying in strength and tone, combined with the frequent recourse to what amounts to a signature tick, whereby the artist pressed the graphite to leave a small darker point as a marker of his position on the sheet of paper, are seen in comparable architectural views by Girtin such as Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr (TG1313) dating from 1798. This conclusion is backed up by the boldly truncated form of the boats in the foreground, which resemble another Thames view that uses the same device to involve the viewer in a more distant view of St Paul’s (TG1386) dating from slightly earlier. Although Hill’s point is well made and he includes other examples of Thames views by Turner that employ a vertical composition to show familiar scenes from a different angle, the stylistic grounds for an attribution to Girtin are overwhelming. Moreover, the way that the view of St Paul’s is radically cropped to create a different perspective on the building, combined with the intrusive foreground, which places the viewer at river level with the artist, can equally be associated with Girtin at this date, around 1796–97.
(?) 1798
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr (The Great House)
TG1313