- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The Market Square at Aylesbury
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on paper
- Dimensions
- 15.2 × 24.1 cm, 6 × 9 ½ in
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing; Replica by Girtin
- Subject Terms
- Buckinghamshire View; Picturesque Vernacular; The Country Town
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
The Market Square at Aylesbury
(TG0369a)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1398
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 397i as '"At Aylesbury"'; '1800'
- Description Source(s)
- Girtin and Loshak, 1954
Provenance
Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74); then by descent to Thomas Girtin (1874–1960); his sale, Sotheby’s, 11 June 1952, lot 8 as 'Aylesbury; a sketch', unsold
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
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
Private Collection
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 drawing has not been seen in public since it appeared at an auction in 1952 and it does not seem to have been photographed. It was known to Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak, however, and they dated it to 1800, suggesting that the sketch was repeated by the artist for Girtin’s early patron Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) (TG0369a) (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.189). That drawing, now part of the Turner Bequest, is on a piece of paper of the same size and is inscribed ‘At Aylesbury’, thus providing the title for this work. This is particularly important, because there do not seem to be any other views of the Buckinghamshire market town of Aylesbury from this date, and we are therefore dependent on the inscription for the identification of the subject in both drawings. More significant still is the strong possibility that the two sketches of Aylesbury are another case of the artist making a replica of one of his on-the-spot pencil drawings, just as with the four examples in the Whitworth Book of Drawings (TG1601, TG1604, TG1611 and TG1620). The original drawings in that case, some dating from a couple of years earlier, are also all smaller, but, because the Aylesbury views are undated and are the same size, it is not possible to say which was the first to be executed. A word of caution, however, for the fact that this drawing came from the collection of Girtin’s son, Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74), is not a guarantee of its authenticity, either as the original or as the copy. Girtin’s son acquired many of his drawings on the open market, rather than by direct inheritance, and it may be significant that this example was unsold at the auction of items from the collection of the artist’s great-grandson, Thomas Girtin (1874–1960), suggesting that there may have been doubts about its attribution. I am also not sure about the date Girtin and Loshak give for the Aylesbury views. The version in the Turner Bequest has much in common with two other drawings from the same source – Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr (The Great House) (TG1313) and Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed (TG1331) – and if it was made for Monro, then a date of around 1798 would make more sense as there is no evidence that Girtin had any connection with the patron after then.
1798 - 1799
The Market Square at Aylesbury
TG0369a
(?) 1801
Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea
TG1601
(?) 1800
Grimbald Bridge, near Knaresborough
TG1604
(?) 1800
A Crag on the River Nidd
TG1611
(?) 1801
Middleham Village, with the Castle Beyond
TG1620
(?) 1798
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr (The Great House)
TG1313
(?) 1798
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
TG1331