- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 24.8 × 31.1 cm, 9 ¾ × 12 ¼ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Monastic Ruins; North Wales
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1345
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 323 as 'Valle Crucis Abbey, The Church'; '1799'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74); then by descent to George Wyndham Hog Girtin (1835–1911) (lent to London, 1875); then by descent to Thomas Girtin (1874–1960); given to Tom Girtin (1913–94), c.1938; bought by John Baskett on behalf of Paul Mellon (1907–99), 1970; presented to the Center, 1975
Exhibition History
London, 1875, no.115 as 'Valle Crucis, North Wales'; Cambridge, 1920, no.36; Agnew’s, 1931, no.138; London, 1962a, no.144; Reading, 1969, no.47; New Haven, 1986a, no.76 as ’Valle Crucis Abbey, Denbyshire’
Bibliography
Davies, 1924, pl.62 as 'Valle Crucis, Herefordshire'
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 view of the East Range of the conventual buildings of Valle Crucis Abbey was almost certainly based on an untraced drawing that Girtin made on his 1798 trip to North Wales. Another sketch showing the same range of buildings, including the Chapter House with its fine fourteenth-century tracery window, was sketched in 1798 (TG1339) and used by Girtin as the basis for four studio watercolours (TG1340, TG1341, TG1342 and TG1343). Viewed from the river, the sketch of the Chapter House from the south west illustrates the way that this part of the ruins was adapted for use as a farm in the eighteenth century, though from this different angle the fate of the building is not so apparent, and Girtin has consequently added a typical farmyard scene to the ruined monastic cloister, with a woman shown tending two cows, chickens and what may be a pig, in order to reinforce the point. The fact that the identities of some of the details are not entirely clear is at least partly down to the watercolour’s faded condition, which, though it has retained its blue sky and generally sunny disposition, has seen the greens in the trees and on the distant mountain compromised, with the result that they have lost their sense of depth, and this also presumably accounts for the sketchy look of the foreground, which Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak thought was ‘unfinished’ (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.178). The degraded appearance of the trees in Girtin’s view is particularly unfortunate, since it is their position, growing in the body of the church, that establishes the way that nature has encroached deeply into the ruins and, indeed, threatens to overwhelm what was once an imposing structure.
(?) 1798
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
TG1339
1798 - 1799
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
TG1340
1798 - 1799
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
TG1341
1798 - 1799
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
TG1342
1798 - 1799
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
TG1343