Melrose Abbey, Scotland

The present drawing was made after a drawing by James Moore (1762-99), an amateur artist and antiquarian. Girtin did not visit Melrose Abbey himself until 1800 or 1801. Moore was Girtin's earliest patron, and he travelled extensivley in Scotland in the late summer of 1792 - his sketch of Melrose is dated 22 August. Girtin is documented as having worked for Moore between October 1792 and February 1793 for a fee of six shillings a day, producing watercolours on paper generally measuring roughly 6 1⁄2 × 8 1⁄2 in.(16.5 × 21.5 cm.). Girtin produced around seventy watercolours after Moore's sketches, thirty of them based on the Scottish trip. This view is significantly larger, however, and it dates from a few years later, when Girtin was employed by Moore to produce a series of more substantial views of medieval cathedrals, including Peterborough, Lichfield, and Ely, which, unlike the earlier watercolours, were designed to be framed for display on the wall. In the case of Melrose Abbey, Moore initially commissioned Girtin’s master, Edward Dayes (1763-1804), to produce a small watercolour from his on the spot sketch. Since Dayes’ watercolour is dated 1792, it seems likely that Moore first turned to him to work up a group of his Scottish drawings, some of which were reproduced in Moore’s 1794 publication Twenty-Five Views in the Southern Part of Scotland, before paying Girtin to complete the set. A year or so later, Moore presumably decided that because Melrose ‘is the most beautiful ruin in Scotland’ with ‘more specimens of Gothic ornament than are any where else to be met with’, it warranted a more substantial treatment, and he commissioned this second version of his sketch from Girtin.
We are grateful to Greg Smith for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.