Dunnottar Castle, Kincardine

This drawing was made after a sketch by the antiquarian James Moore (1762-99), Girtin’s earliest patron and a linen draper in Cheapside, London. Girtin himself never visited Dunottar Castle, high on a cliff on the north-east coast of Scotland. Moore, however, made an extensive tour of Scotland in the late summer of 1792, and his sketch of the castle from an inlet below the fourteenth-century tower house is dated 5 September. Moore was primarily interested in the ancient architecture of Britain, but here it was the location of the castle which drew his attention.
Girtin worked for Moore between October 1792 and February 1793, producing watercolours, each with a distinct washline mount, and the majority of the same size as the present sheet. Moore employed other artists to work up his sketches, including Edward Dayes (1763-1804), of whom Girtin was a pupil, but Girtin produced around seventy watercolours from his sketches, including thirty from the 1792 Scottish trip. Moore eventually amassed a collection of over 100 watercolours by Girtin, which remained in his family until 1912.