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Lot Essay
The present work is a highly finished early watercolour executed collaboratively by those masters of the medium: Joseph Mallord William Turner, and Thomas Girtin. Between 1794 and 1797, during the winter months, the two young artists spent their Friday evening’s at the Adelphi home of the art collector Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), physician to the King, and himself an amateur draughtsman. The pair copied drawings by John Robert Cozens (1752–1797), Edward Dayes (1763–1804) and others. As the two artists later recalled, Girtin generally ‘drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’. The diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) notes that Turner worked for Munro in exchange for ‘half a crown and a plate of oysters’, whilst ‘Girtin did not say what he had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).
In this case, it has not been possible to trace the source drawing for the work amongst J R Cozens known works, and it is not believed that the artist travelled through France on his return to England from Italy. However his father, Alexander Cozens (1717-1786), may well have taken this route in 1746, on his way to or from Italy. His route might have connected with the voyage along the Mediterranean coast which had been identified as part of Alexander’s trip by Kim Sloan (see K. Sloan, Alexander and John Robert Cozens, London, 1986, pp.127–28). Greg Smith notes that ‘this earlier journey provided the raw material for a number of other Monro School subjects in the south of France…, and a visit to Avignon might have been a logical stopover on the route to or from London’ (G. Smith, op-cit).
The work was previously attributed to Turner alone when it was sold at Monro’s posthumous sale in 1833, and has maintained that attribution in all of its subsequent public appearances but the pencil work is typical of that of Girtin, particularly the character of the pencil marks on the masonry of the bridge and on the riverbank.
In this case, it has not been possible to trace the source drawing for the work amongst J R Cozens known works, and it is not believed that the artist travelled through France on his return to England from Italy. However his father, Alexander Cozens (1717-1786), may well have taken this route in 1746, on his way to or from Italy. His route might have connected with the voyage along the Mediterranean coast which had been identified as part of Alexander’s trip by Kim Sloan (see K. Sloan, Alexander and John Robert Cozens, London, 1986, pp.127–28). Greg Smith notes that ‘this earlier journey provided the raw material for a number of other Monro School subjects in the south of France…, and a visit to Avignon might have been a logical stopover on the route to or from London’ (G. Smith, op-cit).
The work was previously attributed to Turner alone when it was sold at Monro’s posthumous sale in 1833, and has maintained that attribution in all of its subsequent public appearances but the pencil work is typical of that of Girtin, particularly the character of the pencil marks on the masonry of the bridge and on the riverbank.