- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Warkworth Hermitage
- Date
- (?) 1796
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 25.5 × 30.4 cm, 10 × 12 in
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch
- Subject Terms
- Durham and Northumberland; Trees and Woods
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1095
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2016
Provenance
Thomas Girtin (1775–1802); his posthumous sale, possibly Christie’s, 1 June 1803, lot 54 as 'A Mill and Warkworth Hermitage, Studies from Nature', £2 18s; ... Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, 7th Baronet (1773–1828); then by descent; Sotheby's, 6 July 2016, lot 340; bought by James Mackinnon Fine Art, £27,500; private collection, USA
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1796 Northern Tour to Yorkshire, the North East and the Scottish Borders:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours

Bamburgh Castle, from the South
Cragside House, Northumberland (National Trust)

Durham Cathedral, from the South West
British Museum, London

The Ouse Bridge, York, from the North Shore
British Museum, London

The Ouse Bridge, York, from Skeldergate Postern
York Art Gallery

York: The New Walk on the Banks of the Ouse
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

York Minster, from the South West
Private Collection

York Minster, from the South West
Private Collection

York Minster, from the Ouse, with St Mary’s Abbey
Harewood House, Yorkshire

The South Side of York Minster, Showing the Transept and the Western Towers
Private Collection, Yorkshire

York Minster, from the South East, Layerthorpe Bridge and Postern to the Right
British Museum, London

Unidentified Gothic Ruins, Said to Be St Mary’s Abbey, York
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

A Distant View of Ripon Minster, from the River Skell
Private Collection

A Distant View of Ripon Minster, from the River Skell
Harewood House, Yorkshire

A Distant View of Rievaulx Abbey
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Private Collection

Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Manchester Art Gallery

Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Bridge at Warkworth, with the Church Beyond
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas
British Museum, London

Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool

Richmond Castle and Town, from the South East
Private Collection

Barnard Castle, from the River Tees
British Museum, London

Egglestone Abbey, from the River Tees
Gallery Oldham

Egglestone Abbey, on the River Tees
British Museum, London

Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir
Private Collection, Norfolk

Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir; Dryburgh Abbey with the Eildon Hills Beyond
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Durham Cathedral, from the South West
Private Collection

St Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Private Collection

Tynemouth Priory, from the Coast
Cleveland Museum of Art

Bothal Castle, from the River Wansbeck
Private Collection

A River Scene with a Tower, Said to Be the Tyne near Hexham
Leeds Art Gallery

Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Private Collection, Norfolk

The Bridge at Warkworth, with the Castle Beyond
Untraced Works

Dunstanburgh Castle, Viewed from a Distance
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Dunstanburgh Castle: The Lilburn Tower
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

An Interior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Lindisfarne: The Nave and Crossing of the Priory Church
British Museum, London

An Exterior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

An Exterior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Private Collection

York Minster, from the South East, Layerthorpe Bridge and Postern to the Right
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Dryburgh Abbey: The South Transept Looking North
Private Collection

Dryburgh Abbey: The South Transept from the Cloister
Private Collection

Melrose Abbey: The Ruined Presbytery and the East Window
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

Melrose Abbey: The Ruined Presbytery and the East Window
Cooper Gallery, Barnsley

Melrose Abbey, from the North East
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Jedburgh Abbey, from the North East
Private Collection

Jedburgh Abbey, from Jed Water
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The Village of Jedburgh, with the Abbey Ruins
British Museum, London

The Village of Jedburgh, with the Abbey Ruins
Private Collection, Bedfordshire

The West Front of Jedburgh Abbey
British Museum, London

Jedburgh Abbey, from the South East
Blickling Hall, Norfolk (National Trust)

The Ruins of the Lady Chapel, near Bothal
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence

Bamburgh Castle, from the Village
Guy Peppiatt Fine Art Ltd

St Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool

Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas
Private Collection

An Interior View of Fountains Abbey: The East Window from the Presbytery
Graves Gallery, Sheffield

St Mary’s, Old Malton, on the River Derwent
Untraced Works

York: Pavement, Looking towards All Saints
Private Collection
Revisions & Feedback
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About this Work
This colour sketch of the curious late fourteenth-century chapel hewn into rock overlooking the river Coquet, known as the Warkworth Hermitage, was almost certainly made in 1796 on Girtin’s first independent sketching tour. Only one of the twenty or so pencil drawings and on-the-spot colour sketches that survive from the trip is dated, but it is still broadly possible to trace Girtin’s progress through Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland and the Scottish Borders from the titles of the works that he sent to the 1797 Royal Academy exhibition, and from the dated watercolours that were subsequently produced from these and other untraced sketches. In this case, Girtin produced two studio watercolours from his sketch of the hermitage (TG1096 and TG1097), and, though the former is dated 1798, the fact that another view of Warkworth was published as an engraving in May 1797 (see print after TG1099) confirms the early date of this sketch.
Establishing a reliable date assumes a particular significance in this case, because although Girtin’s colour sketches from nature had hitherto included examples of small pencil drawings that had been partly coloured, such as Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale (TG1063), as well as larger sheets that were worked more extensively in monochrome, including Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church (TG1105), the study of the hermitage is altogether of a different order. Perhaps the work’s most significant new feature is the evident speed of its execution, which is calculated to capture a rapidly changing light effect. Whole areas of the drawing are left unfinished and the restricted palette of just a few tones of green and brown evinces the practical limitations imposed by working out of doors against the clock. In other areas, such as the foreground and indeed the foliage in general, the wash has been applied with rapid, fluid and broad brushstrokes, which have stained the paper in patterns that are only partly descriptive and where the artist was apparently happy to trust to an element of chance. Then there is the pencil underdrawing, which is both very slight and, in places, independent of the washes applied over it. The lines are not descriptive and do not even fix the broad areas of colour, as everything is subordinated to the search for the equivalent in a watery medium of the impression of a secluded spot illuminated by bright daylight. One final telltale sign of a work done at speed in the open is what appears to be a thumbprint in the bottom left-hand corner, where Girtin literally left his mark as he inadvertently handled the still wet sketch.
The reason for Girtin’s departure from his common sketching practice of working around a basic armature of lines can, I suggest, be accounted for by the nature of the subject. The so-called hermitage is a fifteen-minute walk from the castle at Warkworth – the main site of the artist’s sketching on the 1796 tour – and Girtin would have had to take a boat to cross the river to begin the time-consuming business of sketching in colour on a large scale. All of this suggests that an artist who was not known for going out of his way for a subject had a commission to produce a finished watercolour of the well-known site. The key point is that unlike the subjects of the majority of his studio watercolours at this date, this sequestered woodland scene was not of the predominantly architectural character for which a simple pencil outline or monochrome sketch would have sufficed. Girtin’s new practice of making on-the-spot colour sketches in 1796 therefore stemmed from a realisation that a landscape watercolour in which architecture played at best a subsidiary role required a different working practice in the field if it was to replicate such complex effects as an embowered cave illuminated by bright light reflecting off a river.
1798
Warkworth Hermitage
TG1096
1798 - 1799
Warkworth Hermitage
TG1097
1796 - 1797
The Bridge at Warkworth, with the Castle Beyond
TG1099
(?) 1796
Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
TG1063
(?) 1796
Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
TG1105