Thomas Girtin

Thomas Girtin was one of the most brilliant watercolourists of his generation, a close friend of J.M.W. Turner who shared both his professional beginnings and his revolutionary approach to watercolour landscape. Opie's 1800 portrait of Girtin at the Ashmolean Museum is therefore a document of artistic history — one Royal Academician painting a younger artist of extraordinary promise. Girtin died in 1802 at only twenty-seven, making Opie's portrait one of the few painted likenesses of him. The Ashmolean's collection includes important holdings in British watercolour and drawing, making the Girtin portrait particularly appropriate to its context. The 1800 date gives the portrait an elegiac quality in retrospect — Girtin had only two years to live, though this could not have been known at the time. Turner famously said that had Girtin lived, he himself would have starved.

Opie's portrait of a fellow artist would likely show a particular alertness of characterisation — painters often bring extra attention to portraits of colleagues. The informal, direct quality of many artist-to-artist portraits is consistent with Opie's directness. The face would be the sole expressive focus, with minimal setting or props beyond what indicates the sitter's artistic identity.