THOMAS GIRTIN , The Harbour at Weymouth, Dorset, circa 1798

THOMAS GIRTIN

(1775-1802)

The Harbour at Weymouth, Dorset, circa 1798

signed 'T. Girtin' (lower left)

pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour on laid paper

11in x 19½in.

Acquired by a Private Collector

Provenance

M.J. Holroyd of Halifax, circa 1860, and by descent to his grand-daughter, Miss Sybil Holroyd;

Sotheby's London, 19 March 1981, lot 174.

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 14 July 1994, lot 119

Mrs T.S. Eliot

Exhibited

Possibly London, Royal Academy, 1798, no. 342, as 'Coast of Dorsetshire.'

London, Tate Gallery, Thomas Girtin: The Art of Watercolour, July - September, 2002, no. 112.

Literature

S. Morris, Thomas Girtin, New Haven and London, 1986, p. 16.

G. Smith, Thomas Girtin: The Art of Watercolour, London, 2002, p. 150, no. 112.

Weymouth was one of many towns along the southern coast that benefited from the growing belief in the medical advantages of sea bathing, and, following George III's visit in 1789, it grew rapidly into a fashionable and respectable resort.

In the present watercolour, Girtin confines any glimpses of this new resort, with its modern buildings and bathing machines, to a narrow band subordinated to the broad sweep of the harbour with its beached shipping.

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