- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on paper, on an original washline mount
- Dimensions
- 44.9 × 53.9 cm, 17 ⅝ × 21 ¼ in
- Inscription
'Girtin' lower left, by Thomas Girtin
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Castle Ruins; The Midlands
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
(TG1365)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1366
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2017
Provenance
Sir William Forbes, 7th Baronet of Pitsligo (1773–1828); then by descent; Sotheby's, 28 March 2017, lot 264, £9,375 as 'A Woman Seated near Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire'
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Tate, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Private Collection, North Wales
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
British Museum, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
British Museum, London
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
Private Collection
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris
Private Collection
A View of Hills and a River, Probably in North Wales
British Museum, London
Denbigh Castle and the Vale of Clwyd
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly the Vale of Clwyd
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Valle Crucis Abbey: From the Cloister Looking Towards the Dormitory
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Cloisters of Chester Cathedral
Private Collection
The Red Castle, from Hawk Lake, with a Distant View of Shrewsbury
Private Collection
Wroxeter: The Roman Wall
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
The Old Severn Bridge at Bridgnorth
British Museum, London
Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
Private Collection
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About this Work
This studio watercolour, showing the Great Hall of Kenilworth Castle, is based on an on-the-spot sketch that Girtin appears to have made on the way to or on his return from North Wales in the summer of 1798 (TG1365). He had already painted two views of the ruins of the late fourteenth-century hall of John of Gaunt (1340–99) when he visited the site in person (TG0250 and TG0288). Working for the amateur artist and antiquarian James Moore (1762–99) around 1795, Girtin had probably based his first watercolours on sketches by the patron, and the results not surprisingly lack any of the drama displayed here. Free now to adopt any viewpoint, Girtin chose a low situation close to the overgrown wall piled up with rubble, so that we get a sense of both the monumental quality of the ruins and the fact that they have partly been reclaimed by nature. Sadly, the immersive effect, so different from the careful elaboration of architectural details seen in the view made for Moore, has lost some of its impact due to the partial fading of the watercolour. Thus, although the sky has remained intact, and the effects of the sun shining through the monumental windows still replicate the on-the-spot sketch, the greens of the vegetation have been severely compromised and the deep gloom of the foreground no longer offers a contrast of mood. The female figure – whose melancholic pose, like the equivalent form in the foreground of another set of Gothic ruins overwhelmed by vegetation (TG1346), was introduced to enhance the mood of sad reverie – seems merely out of place in a scene where the balance of light and shade has been altered for the worse.
The deterioration in the watercolour’s condition is particularly unfortunate, because although Girtin showed no great interest in the historical associations of the buildings he depicted, I am sure that the contrast between the dark foreground and the radiant distance was configured to represent, at least in general terms, the present sad and ruined state of a building closely associated with revelry and festivities in the past. The Revd Richard Warner (1763–1857), who visited the Great Hall a couple of years after Girtin, is typical of any number of tourists who dwelt at length on the
fair form of Kenilworth-Castle in its glory;
the scene of mirth and of gallantry,
Of pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask and antique pageantry.
(Warner, 1802, vol.2, p.226)
Beyond its medieval heyday, the Great Hall was perhaps even better known as the centre of the nineteen days of festivities that the later owner of Kenilworth Robert Dudley (1532/33–88), Earl of Leicester, organised for the visit of Elizabeth I (1533–1903) in 1575. Warner again described this in great detail, including the ultimately sad fate of the family and their property during the Civil War (Warner, 1802, vol.2, pp.225–35). Girtin almost certainly did not read such accounts and thus would not have been influenced by them when he fashioned his image, but the point is that in order to create a successful commodity, he needed to embody sentiments such as the transience of earthly pleasures and the dangers of civil strife. I suspect that if we could reverse the detrimental effect of time on this watercolour, we would see that this was what he succeeded in evoking here.
(?) 1798
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
TG1365
(?) 1795
Kenilworth Castle: The View from the South
TG0250
1794 - 1795
The Ruins of the Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
TG0288
1798 - 1799
Gothic Ruins: Said to Be Valle Crucis Abbey
TG1346