The sale took place over nine days, 24 July to 2 August 1848

Lugt, Catalogues, no.19112

Copy consulted: Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague, online at Art Sales Catalogues Online

Day 5

‘WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS, FRAMED AND GLAZED’

• 4 – 'T. Girtin ... Avebury, by Britton, and Bamborough Castle’.

As Tim Wilcox has kindly pointed out, Girtin’s untraced drawing of Bamborough was listed in the inventory of the home of William Beckford (1760–1844) in Lansdown Crescent, Bath that was made shortly before his death in 1844 (email dated 29 April 2023). ‘View of Bambrough Castle’ was one of a significant assembly of ‘Drawings framed and glazed’, mainly of Italian and English topographical views, that decorated the walls of ‘Lady Lincoln’s Bed Room’. In addition to groups of drawings by John Warwick Smith (1749–1831) and a view of Fonthill listed as by ‘Wyatt’, a study by John Britton (1751–1857) of Avebury likewise precedes Girtin’s drawing (Bodleain Library, Oxford (MS. Beckford c. 58)). The fact that the two works are listed in the same lot in the 1848 sale may mean that they were framed together and that Beckford’s untraced Girtin was therefore not a substantial work, more like Bamburgh Castle, from the South (TG0183) rather than impressive framed watercolours such as TG1103 and TG1104 or the earlier castle views TG0116 and TG1459. In any case, all four drawings have secure alternative provenances for the period of Beckford’s life. Another possible candidate for Beckford’s Girtin might be the untraced source drawing for the engraving that was published in 1797 in The Copper-Plate Magazine by John Walker (active 1776–1802) (see TG1459 print after).