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Lot Essay
The present watercolour is the most serene and imposing of Girtin's views of Bolton Abbey, North Yorkshire, a subject which he explored in 1800-1801. Four pencil sketches and seven watercolours of the Abbey are known, as well as watercolours of the Stepping Stones on the Wharfe opposite the Abbey, and the winding river in The Hickman Bacon Collection known as On the Wharfe. The grandeur of the spot, discovered by Girtin on his Northern tour of 1800, resonated with the artist. That year he stayed with Edward Lascelles (1764-1814), eldest son of the Earl of Harewood, at Harewood House, about twenty miles south-east of Bolton. Like Kirkstall Abbey, also painted by Girtin at this time, Bolton fulfilled what Girtin was seeking in those last years of his all-too-short career (he died in 1802, aged twenty-eight). Here was a major medieval ruin, situated by water, and framed by the sublime Yorkshire landscape.
The present watercolour, dated 1801, shows the Abbey from the south-east, across the River Wharfe. Bolton Abbey, actually an Augustinian Priory, was founded in 1151 by Alicia de Romilly and suppressed in 1539 at the Reformation. The west end, still roofed, survives as the parish church; the east end was allowed to fall into picturesque decay. Girtin's watercolour is loosely derived from a pencil sketch of 1800 in the Shepherd Sketchbook (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester) which shows the modern village clustered round the south side of the Abbey. In the watercolour, Girtin has stripped out much of this extraneous detail to emphasise the nobility of the ruin, which is also seen from its most homogenous angle. The monumental building towers over the unassuming later cottages. Its blocklike, brooding presence is poignantly undercut by light shining through the delicate tracery of the vast windows in the ruined eastern section. Behind loom the eternal hills, almost grazed by drifting clouds from which escape fitful gleams of sunlight.
Water was everything to a Girtin composition. Here he makes brilliant play of reflections in the Wharfe, balancing a cow created from a few dazzling strokes of Chinese white gouache, standing in dark bushes, with another, silhouetted animal defined by a strip of sunlit water. Girtin uses his uncanny control of the broadest of watercolour washes and his exquisitely-judged sense of composition to convey the harmony of the man-made and the natural.
The romantic legends around Bolton Abbey inspired poems by both Samuel Rogers (1763-1855), who owned a Girtin watercolour of Bolton, coloured on the spot, and William Wordsworth (1770-1850). Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) painted it in circa 1809. The importance of Bolton in Girtin's oeuvre is underlined by the fact that he chose Bolton Bridge (now lost) for his first essay in oil, shown at the Royal Academy in 1801. The present watercolour was owned by Girtin's exact contemporary, Sir William Pilkington (1775-1850) of Chevet Park near Wakefield, who joins Edward Lascelles, Sir John Ramsden (circa 1755-1839), Lord Buchan (1742-1829) and Lord Mulgrave (1755-1831) among those Northern patrons who treasured his unique vision of their beloved landscape.
We are grateful to Susan Morris for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.
The present watercolour, dated 1801, shows the Abbey from the south-east, across the River Wharfe. Bolton Abbey, actually an Augustinian Priory, was founded in 1151 by Alicia de Romilly and suppressed in 1539 at the Reformation. The west end, still roofed, survives as the parish church; the east end was allowed to fall into picturesque decay. Girtin's watercolour is loosely derived from a pencil sketch of 1800 in the Shepherd Sketchbook (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester) which shows the modern village clustered round the south side of the Abbey. In the watercolour, Girtin has stripped out much of this extraneous detail to emphasise the nobility of the ruin, which is also seen from its most homogenous angle. The monumental building towers over the unassuming later cottages. Its blocklike, brooding presence is poignantly undercut by light shining through the delicate tracery of the vast windows in the ruined eastern section. Behind loom the eternal hills, almost grazed by drifting clouds from which escape fitful gleams of sunlight.
Water was everything to a Girtin composition. Here he makes brilliant play of reflections in the Wharfe, balancing a cow created from a few dazzling strokes of Chinese white gouache, standing in dark bushes, with another, silhouetted animal defined by a strip of sunlit water. Girtin uses his uncanny control of the broadest of watercolour washes and his exquisitely-judged sense of composition to convey the harmony of the man-made and the natural.
The romantic legends around Bolton Abbey inspired poems by both Samuel Rogers (1763-1855), who owned a Girtin watercolour of Bolton, coloured on the spot, and William Wordsworth (1770-1850). Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) painted it in circa 1809. The importance of Bolton in Girtin's oeuvre is underlined by the fact that he chose Bolton Bridge (now lost) for his first essay in oil, shown at the Royal Academy in 1801. The present watercolour was owned by Girtin's exact contemporary, Sir William Pilkington (1775-1850) of Chevet Park near Wakefield, who joins Edward Lascelles, Sir John Ramsden (circa 1755-1839), Lord Buchan (1742-1829) and Lord Mulgrave (1755-1831) among those Northern patrons who treasured his unique vision of their beloved landscape.
We are grateful to Susan Morris for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.