- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The West Front of St Paul’s Cathedral
- Date
- 1790 - 1791
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 12.8 cm, 5 in diam.
- Inscription
‘T Girtin’ lower left, by Thomas Girtin; ‘SAINT PAULS’ lower centre; ‘1594’ outside the roundel
- Object Type
- Drawing for a Print
- Subject Terms
- London Architecture
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG0043
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 5 as 'Front of St. Paul's, London'; '1790'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and 2016
Provenance
J. Jackson (according to Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.134); ... Francis Pierrepont Barnard (1854–1931); his widow, Isabella Barnard; bequeathed to the Museum, 1934
Bibliography
Mayne, 1949, p.25, p.98; Girtin, 1952, p.115; Brown, 1982, p.318, no.695
Place depicted
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About this Work
Girtin’s signed drawing for the ninth plate of the periodical The Temple of Taste, published by Charles Taylor (1756–1823) on 1 July 1795, dates from significantly earlier and it was probably made after the work of an older, established artist. The text by Taylor that accompanies the engraving notes that ‘the Artist has availed himself of a licence allowable … in order to present a more complete view of this magnificent edifice than any spot in the confined area which actually surrounds it would permit’ and that he has ‘enlarged the space that surrounds the building very considerably’. This is another way of saying that the building is presented as an architectural elevation and in a manner that required little skill in perspective from either the original artist or the later copyist. Taylor characteristically frames his account of the architectural story of St Paul’s with a patriotic boast, claiming that in terms of ‘magnitude’ and ‘magnificence … it is inferior to none in Europe, except St Peter’s at Rome’, safe in the knowledge that with travel to the Continent halted by war such claims could not be tested. 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.