Wetherby Bridge and Mills, Yorkshire, Looking Across the Weir was painted during Thomas Girtin’s summer sketching tour in the north of England.1 Having first traveled there in 1797, Girtin knew Yorkshire and northern England well and rapidly established a devoted circle of patrons. The old town of Wetherby along the River Wharf was an important market and transport hub, but not a popular destination for artists. However, Girtin understood its picturesque promise, and he made a number of sketches and watercolors in and around Wetherby during his summer trip to Yorkshire in 1799 or 1800.2 This composition, executed in a panoramic format, looks from the south bank of the River Wharfe across the weir to Wetherby mills, used for grinding corn and pressing rape seed, and the bridge, which carried the Great North Road connecting England to Scotland. Inn buildings are visible beyond the mills. In front of the bridge, Girtin depicts a cart, spade, and three figures working to repair the weir. David Hill mentions that major floods in Yorkshire in 1799 were recorded and suspects that Girtin “recorded the damage being repaired” in the following summer, when the water level was low. Hill points out that the “endeavours of the labourers take on an almost heroic dimension” in showing them attempting to control the flow of nature.3 This composition is a rare document of the town’s eighteenth-century appearance, which has been almost entirely lost due to the buildup of the waterfront since that time.4 Girtin portrayed another, more dramatic, view of the bridge, peering through its arches toward another mill and cottages when looking east from the weir, which survives in two versions.5
These three studio watercolors of Wetherby Bridge conform to the standard size of the works for sale that were in the possession of Samuel William Reynolds, who acted as an agent on behalf of Girtin in his last years, and this watercolor was probably for sale on the open market.6 Girtin’s patrons in northern England included Edward Lascelles (1764–1814), whose family seat, Harewood House, was situated only a few miles to the west of this landscape. Lascelles is known to have purchased a number of local views near Wetherby, such as the bridge at Harewood.7 He hoped to promote Girtin over Turner in the elections for the Royal Academy of Arts in 1790.8 Lascelles, in fact, owned a graphite sketch of this finished watercolor, and perhaps Girtin planned on selling it to his esteemed patron.9 It has also been suggested by Greg Smith that Girtin had a “pioneering role in the commodification of the sketch at this date.”10 Two graphite drawings for this view survive, and the artist would often draw on the spot in a specific location before returning to the studio to make a more finished watercolor.11 Girtin’s muted coloring endeavored to rival oil painting, achieving a similar depth and richness with translucent watercolors.12 This sheet retains a harmonious beauty, although the overall color balance has been altered due to Girtin’s use of unstable indigo pigment. —Dena M. Woodall
Notes
1. This watercolor was owned by Francis W. Keen, a director of Guest, Keen & Nettlefold, who was a significant British watercolor collector and who also owned Girtin’s Morpeth Bridge, now in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne.
2. Joseph Mallord William Turner eventually sketched there in 1816. See his graphite sketch Wetherby Bridge and Town from Downstream on the River Wharfe in his 1816 Yorkshire I sketchbook in the Tate, Turner Bequest CXLIV 8 a [D10883].
3. Girtin portrayed more than one weir being repaired, including Harewood Bridge, showing the south bank of the River Wharfe with the weir in front. The watercolor, Harewood Bridge, was commissioned by Girtin’s patron, Edward Lascelles (1764–1814), the son of the owner of Harewood House. See Thomas Girtin, Harewood Bridge, 1800–1801, graphite and watercolor on laid paper, Harewood House, Yorkshire [HHTP:2001.2.23], and David Hill, ed., Thomas Girtin, Genius in the North, exh. cat. (Yorkshire: Harewood House, 1999), 41–43.
4. See Greg Smith, Thomas Girtin Catalogue Raisonné, cat. TG1642, www.thomasgirtin.com. Thanks to Nic Sheppard, Wetherby Civic Society, in correspondence with Craig S. Calvert, who mentioned a photograph of the mill and bridge from a similar vantage point taken before 1922 and before major modifications were made to this area. The photograph is preserved at the Wetherby Wier Preservation Trust in association with the Wetherby Historical Trust. The bridge was rebuilt in the seventeenth century and widened twice, first in 1773 and again in 1826. See correspondence, February 15, 2024, prints and drawings curatorial files, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
5. Wetherby: Looking through the Bridge to the Mills, c. 1800, graphite and watercolor on laid paper, British Museum, London [1855,0214.7] [TG1643]. Wetherby: Looking through the Bridge to the Mills, c. 1800, graphite, watercolor, and pen and ink on laid paper, Leeds Art Gallery [LEEAG.2015.0020] [TG1644]. These two finished watercolors are associated with an on-the-spot sketch, see Thomas Girtin, Wetherby Bridge and Mills, Looking across the Weir, c. 1800, graphite and watercolor on wove paper, private collection, Hertfordshire [TG1641], included in Greg Smith, ed., Thomas Girtin: The Art of Watercolour, exh. cat. (London: Tate Gallery, 2002), 173, cat. 134.
6. See Greg Smith, Thomas Girtin: Catalogue Raisonné, TG1642, www.thomasgirtin.com.
7. In Harewood Bridge, Girtin has also depicted figures mending a weir. See Thomas Girtin, Harewood Bridge, 1800–1801, graphite and watercolor on laid paper, Harewood House, Yorkshire [HHTP:2001.2.23].
8. See Susan Morris, “Thomas Girtin,” in David Hill, ed., Thomas Girtin, Genius in the North, exh. cat. (Yorkshire: Harewood House, 1999), 42–43. It is also known that Girtin stayed with the Earl of Harewood at Harewood House “for Roget states that Lord Harewood had a room kept for Girtin at Harewood House, where he lived for long periods together, and made some of his most important drawings.” See Martin Hardie, “A Sketch-Book of Thomas Girtin,” Walpole Society 27 (1938–39), 90.
9. See Lowell Libson, Ltd., British Art: Recent Acquisitions (London: Lowell Libson, 2015), 73. The small sketch in graphite was owned by the Earl of Harewood sold at Christie’s, London, on July 13, 1965, lot. 166.
10. See Smith, Thomas Girtin: Catalogue Raisonné, TG1535, and Greg Smith, “The Watercolourist’s Sketch: Girtin and Turner on Tour in North Wales and North England, 1796–8,” Turner Society News, no. 140 (Autumn 2023): 3–15.
11. One sketch, which Greg Smith proposed as a replica, not made on location, is Thomas Girtin, Wetherby Bridge and Mills, Looking across the Weir, c. 1800, graphite and watercolor on wove paper, private collection, Norfolk [1-E-21]. He proposes that, “due to the inclusion of decorative details, such as the five gulls circling the bridge, and a more careful application of color,” Girtin added the color in the studio to an on-the-spot sketch. Another sketch, Wetherby: Looking through the Bridge to the Mills (graphite on laid paper, private collection), which differs in color, was probably the one drawn at the location. See Smith, Thomas Girtin: Catalogue Raisonné, TG1535 and TG 1536. Another example of a closely related sketch drawn at location compared to a studio watercolor is Kirk Deighton, near Wetherby, c. 1800, graphite and watercolor on wove paper, private collection, Hertfordshire [TG 1646], and Thomas Girtin, Kirk Deighton, near Wetherby, c. 1800, graphite, watercolor, and scratching out on laid paper, the Whitworth, University of Manchester [D.1892.111]. See Smith, Thomas Girtin: Catalogue Raisonné, TG1646 and TG1647. See also Thomas Girtin and David Loshak, The Art of Thomas Girtin (London: A. and C. Black, 1954), 182, cat. 348 (misidentified as Hexham Bridge).
12. Girtin’s coloring has been connected to that of John Robert Cozens in his treatment of watercolor as well as to his interest in Flemish landscape. See Lowell Libson, Ltd., British Art: Recent Acquisitions, 70.
Wetherby Bridge and Mills, Yorkshire, Looking Across the Weir
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ProvenanceArthur Thomas Keen (1861–1918); then by descent to Francis Watkins Keen (c. 1864–1933; by descent to C. A. Keen; [his sale, Sotheby’s London, Fine Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century English Drawings and Watercolours, April 20, 1972, lot 57, pl. VI (as A Riverside Town)]; purchased by Edward Fremantle, 1972–d. 1984; [his sale, Christie’s, London, Important English Drawings and Watercolours, November 20, 1984, lot 102 (as A Chapel and Bridge at Wetherby, Yorkshire)]; purchased by Robert Tear (1939–2011), 1984–d. 2011; [his posthumous sale, Sotheby’s, Old Master & British Drawings, July 9, 2014, lot 188]; [Lowell Libson, Ltd., London, 2014-2016]; purchased by MFAH, 2016.
Comparative Images
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