J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Monro School c.1794-8 > Collaborations with Thomas Girtin for Dr ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Savoy Chapel c.1796

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin, ‘London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Savoy Chapel’ c.1796
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Thomas Girtin 1775–1802
London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Savoy Chapel c.1796
D36526
Turner Bequest CCCLXXV 5
Pencil and grey and grey-blue wash on white wove paper, 205 x 272 mm laid on a ruled mount of white wove paper, 255 x 330 mm
Inscribed in an early hand in pencil ‘Savoy Chaple’ on mount, bottom centre
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXXV – 5’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Provenance:
Probably commissioned by Dr Thomas Monro
Monro’s posthumous sale, Christie’s, London, 26 June 1833 (probably in 98, as one of four views of ‘Ruins of the Savoy Palace’ by Turner)
Bought by or on behalf of Turner
The pencil work is by Girtin. C.F. Bell noted that this is a copy of the watercolour by Thomas Girtin formerly in the F.P. Barnard collection, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.1
1
Thomas Girtin and David Loshak, The Art of Thomas Girtin, London 1954, p.150 no.120 (ii), fig.23; David Blayney Brown, The Earlier British Drawings: British Artists and Foreigners Working in Britain Born before C.1775, Ashmolean Museum Oxford: Catalogue of the Drawings, vol.IV, Oxford 1982, pp.332–3 no.724, pl.284.
Technical notes:
The sheet is discoloured from prolonged exposure. It is laid down on a paper mount (roughly cut from an album) with a ruled pencil border, which corresponds with the type of mount used in the two ‘Monro School’ albums at Tate (Turner Bequest CCCLXXIII, CCCLXXIV). See also Tate D36523 (Turner Bequest CCCLXXV 2).
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; laid down on album page inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘222’, and in a later hand ‘8’.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Savoy Chapel c.1796 by Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin’, catalogue entry, April 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-thomas-girtin-london-the-interior-of-the-ruins-of-the-savoy-r1141250, accessed 25 April 2024.