- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The East Front of St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden
- Date
- 1792 - 1793
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour and pen and ink on wove paper, squared for transfer
- Dimensions
- 9.8 cm, 3 ⅞ in diam.
- Inscription
‘Thos Girtin delt’ lower left, by Thomas Girtin; ‘East End Saint / Covent Garden’ lower centre
- Object Type
- Drawing for a Print
- Subject Terms
- London Architecture
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG0036
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 2 as '1789–90'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and 2016
Provenance
J. Jackson (the sculptor) (according to Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.134); Henry Peter Standly (1782–1844); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 16 April 1845, lot 397 as 'St. Paul’s, Covent Garden'; bought by 'Palser', 8s; J. Palser & Sons; Joseph Mayer (1803–86); his posthumous sale, Sotheby's, 21 July 1887, lot 186, £1 6s; ... Francis Pierrepont Barnard (1854–1931); his widow, Isabella Barnard; bequeathed to the Museum, 1934
Bibliography
Mayne, 1949, p.25, p.98; Davies, 1924, p.25; Girtin, 1952, p.115; Brown, 1982, pp.317-18, no.694
Place depicted
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About this Work
Girtin’s signed drawing for the second plate of Charles Taylor’s (1756–1823) periodical The Temple of Taste (published 1 December 1794) is, like The Queen’s Palace, or Buckingham House (TG0034), smaller than the print and it too has been squared up ready to transfer to a larger scale. Even though the east end of Inigo Jones’ (1573–1652) great church was only a few metres away from the house of the young apprentice’s master, Edward Dayes (1763–1804), it is likely that Girtin based his work on an image by another artist. Dayes himself depicted the burnt-out remains of the church in 1795, but he portrayed it from an oblique angle and the strict symmetry employed suggests that Girtin turned to Dayes’ print collection and the work of one of the older generation of topographers, such as Samuel Wale (1720–86), whose simple compositions might have better suited the demands of a patron who prized a clarity of architectural form and detail over everything else. The text accompanying the image, written by the work’s publisher, Taylor, talks about the building in rapt terms, describing Jones’ building, constructed between 1631 and 1635, as ‘one of the most simple, and at the same time most perfect pieces of Architecture that Art can produce’. Sadly, he concluded, its ‘majestic simplicity’ is compromised by its location at the heart of the market and this was presumably at the front of Taylor’s mind when he engraved Girtin’s view and made the figures less overtly engaged in market trading. In all Girtin may have made as many as twenty-one drawings for Taylor’s publication, though this is one of only six that are known to survive, including two others showing the city’s ecclesiastical gems, An Exterior View of Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey (TG0026) and The West Front of St Paul’s Cathedral (TG0043).
1790 - 1791
The Queen’s Palace, or Buckingham House
TG0034
1790 - 1791
An Exterior View of Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey
TG0026
1790 - 1791
The West Front of St Paul’s Cathedral
TG0043