John Thirtle

Thirtle's portrait miniature of his mother Susannah (undated)

Much of the biographical detail about John Thirtle is undocumented,[1] and little is known of his life.[2] The son of John Thirtle and his wife Susanna Lincoln, he was probably born in a house close to St Saviour's Church, Norwich, and was baptised at that church on 22 June 1777.[1][note 1] A sister, Rachel, was baptised on 13 August 1780 and a younger brother named James was baptised in 1785.[4] His parents were well-known members of the local community. His father, who worked in Elephant Yard off Magdalen Street as a bootmaker and an overseer of the poor, was a churchwarden at St Saviour's. Few details are known of Thirtle's boyhood or education.[5]

In 1790, the 13-year-old John was apprenticed to Benjamin Jagger of Norwich, the leading carver, gilder, picture dealer and printmaker in the city.[6][note 2] In about 1799 Thirtle moved to London to serve an apprenticeship to make picture frames,[8] possibly under a Mr. Allwood.[5] During this apprenticeship he studied the pictures of John Sell Cotman at Rudolph Ackermann's print shop at 96, The Strand.[9]

John Berney Crome, Woodland Scene (undated), in a frame made by Thirtle

Detail of Thirtle's frame

On the successful completion of his apprenticeship in 1805, Thirtle returned to Norwich, where he showed five paintings at an exhibition of the Norwich Society of Artists,[10] and set himself up to produce picture frames and prints in a shop in Magdalen Street. During what appears to have been a mainly uneventful life, he rarely left his home city again.[8] In 1806, when he had already established himself as a picture framer and gilder in Norwich, he described himself in the Society's catalogue as a "Miniature Painter and Drawing Master". His business activities, and particularly the production of his decorative picture frames,[10] led to his becoming one of the more financially successful members of the Norwich School of painters, despite strong competition from Jeremiah and William Freeman, who dominated the Norwich framing market during this period.[11][12][13]

Paintings by members of the Norwich School were framed by Thirtle, including those by Cotman, John Crome, Thomas Lound, James Sillett, and Joseph Stannard.[11][note 3] When Thirtle framed George Vincent's oil painting Trowse Meadows, near Norwich (first exhibited in 1828), he made a watercolour version of it.[15] His trade label took several forms, ranging from the early 'Thirtle, Miniature Painter, & Drawing Master' to the elaborate 'Carver, Gilder, Picture Frame and Looking Glass Manufacturer, Wholesale and Retail', used in the 1830s.[16]

Paintings still in Thirtle's frames can be dated from before 1839, the year he died. William Boswell, who took over the business that year, initially included 'Late Thirtle' in brackets on his labels.[17] In 1922, W. Boswell & Son acknowledged in one of their publications that "Thirtle was a well-known frame-maker, and the maker of the now famous swept frame, which has never been equalled, he also was, and still is an artist of no small repute."[18]

The River Yare at Gorleston, with shipping (undated), British Museum

The art historian Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton charted Thirtle's development as an artist into four periods. During the first period, c.1803 – 1808, he produced few works, and his style fluctuated; the following period from 1808 to 1813 is marked by the strong influence of Cotman. During his third period, from 1813 to 1819, when his article style returned to being more conventional and less realistic, he produced outdoors what the art historian Andrew Hemingway has described as "wonderfully spontaneous and sure sketches". After 1819 he produced few works.[19]

Thirtle's earliest known work is his landscape The Windmill (1800),[20] an unusual subject matter for him, as he first exhibited works that were not landscapes, but portraits and paintings of other subjects. By 1806 he had begun to increase his output of landscapes, and to stand out as a master of the genre of watercolour painting.[9][21] In 1803, Crome and Robert Ladbrooke formed the Norwich Society of Artists, which included Vincent, Charles Hodgson, Daniel Coppin, James Stark and Robert Dixon. Their first exhibition, in 1805, marked the start of the Norwich School of painters, the first British art movement created outside London.[20] Thirtle exhibited five paintings as one of the five featured artists.[22]

Thirtle was a major figure within the Norwich School of painters.[19] He was probably a founding member of the Norwich Society of Artists, but his membership of the society was only first recorded three years after it was founded. He exhibited during the first years of the society, showing only miniatures. After he became a landscape artist, depicting scenes of thunderstorms and the rivers Yare and Wensum, the nature of his exhibited works changed.[23] Crome, Cotman and Thirtle were sources of inspiration for the artists of the Norwich School.[19] Thirtle served as vice-president of the society from 1806 to 1812. His output of exhibited works declined from a peak of 17 (produced in 1806) until he exhibited only six works in 1817, and none the year after that, making a total of 97.[4] He exhibited only once outside Norwich, at the Royal Academy in London in 1808.[24] His business responsibilities prevented him from working as a full-time artist, and he abandoned painting during his final illness.[19]

Portrait of the Artist's wife, Elizabeth Miles (1816), Norfolk Museums Collections

On 26 October 1812 Thirtle married Elizabeth Miles of Felbrigg, from a minor landowning family in north Norfolk;[4] her sister Ann had married Cotman three years previously. Thirtle and Elizabeth were married at St Saviour's, the church in Norwich where he had been baptised 35 years previously. The marriage produced a close association with Cotman that influenced Thirtle's artistic style.[23] The two artists probably worked together when Cotman was producing drawings of the interior of Norwich Cathedral in around 1808, as similar drawings by Thirtle from this time have survived.[25] The two Miles sisters were themselves amateur painters, having shown their work at the Norwich Society of Artists exhibition of 1811.[11][26] The marriage was probably childless.[4]

In 1814 Thirtle was elected President of the Norwich Society of Artists, but he was one of three leading artists to secede from the Society in 1816 to form the Norfolk and Norwich Society of Artists.[4] The secession was caused by a disagreement over how the profits of the exhibitions should be used. It led to Ladbrooke, Sillett, Joseph Clover, Stannard and Thirtle renting part of the Shakespeare Tavern on Theatre Plain and holding their own exhibition, The Twelfth Exhibition of the Norfolk and Norwich Society of Artists, to rival the original Society's exhibition in Sir Benjamin's Wrench's Court.[27]

Thirtle's decline in output from 1806 was reported by the local press, whose disappointment was expressed in 1811: "We lament exceedingly that Mr. Thirtle, who made up the seceding triumvirate, should not have found time for a single drawing. His occupation is doubly to be regretted, because he stands highest and alone in the particular and beautiful department of watercolours in which he has evinced so much decided excellence." Although Thirtle continued to paint, he exhibited nothing from 1818 to 1828.[11]

At some time, while Cotman was contributing drawings for the Excursions in the County of Norfolk (1818), Thirtle went to Great Yarmouth to help his brother-in-law, but none of his drawings appeared in the published work and he probably assisted Cotman by relieving him of his teaching activities.[28]

Sunset Landscape with Thorpe Hospital, Norwich (1828), Norfolk Museums Collections; a successful example of Thirtle's tendency to use tinted paper.[29][note 4]

By 1824 Thirtle was taking on pupils: he was employed by Thomas Blofield to instruct his daughter Mary Catherine and he also taught James Pattison Cockburn.[11] Thirtle's mother died in 1823; an inheritance from his father, who died in 1825, may have given him some financial security for the remainder of his life, as 1825 is the first year in which he is known to have independently owned property.[4]

After the dissolution of the Norwich Society of Artists in 1833, its main artists, including Thirtle, remained active. He continued to produce picture frames as well as to paint river scenes, reminiscent of the works of Peter De Wint.[31] His drawings and paintings were collected by Lound, a prolific water colourist and etcher who owned 70 of Thirtle's works at the time of his own death in 1861. Lound's etching of Devil's Tower – Looking towards Carrow Bridge (1832) created a rendition of Thirtle's original watercolour "that perfectly convey the tonal balance that Thirtle had established".[32][33]

Thirtle is known to have suffered from tuberculosis for many years. This greatly interfered with his work output, although the art historian Derek Clifford has commented on the stronger and more freely expressed manner of these later drawings.[23] Thirtle died of tuberculosis in Norwich on 30 September 1839, and was buried in the Rosary Cemetery in Norwich.[34] The tomb-chest of Thirtle and his wife can be found in Section E (Reference E759 Sq(uare)).[34] After his death, the framing business was taken over by William Boswell. In Thirtle's short will, made in 1838 and proved in December 1839, he described himself as both a carver and a gilder.[16] He left the sum of £2,000 (equivalent to £194,500 in 2019)[35] to his wife Elizabeth.[1][36] She outlived him by many years, dying in 1882 at the age of 95.[37]

River Scene with laden Wherries and Figures (undated), Norfolk Museums Collections

Thirtle used a natural indigo pigment for producing fine greys,[50] obtained from indigofera tinctoria, a species of the bean family.[51][note 7] He may have used a cheap form of indigo sold by a local dealer in Norwich.[53] Those watercolours where the pigment was used have deteriorated because the pigment faded to red when exposed to light. This characteristic of his paintings cannot be applied to them all, but it is sometimes assumed that Thirtle's works are all permanently ruined in this way. Equally, the use of indigo by other painters has meant that their works were sometimes incorrectly attributed to Thirtle.[50]

An example of such a work is his River Scene with laden Wherries and Figures, an undated pencil and watercolour, in which the pink glow of the sky and the sea have been unintentionally caused by the fading away of the original greyish blue colours. The original colours produced by Thirtle can still be seen around the edges of the painting, where there was much less exposure to light.[54] A section in Thirtle's treatise describes how he used indigo when painting his skies, without any mention of its fading effect:

Occasionally you may use Black on the sky, do it with care or you will make it earthy—Venetian Red and Indigo, the red predominating, will do for the first wash of your clouds, as it will appear warm. Let your next shadow have more Indigo, making a Grey. The third, make the Maddar Purple and Indigo, you'll have a fine tone in the clouds.

— John Thirtle, Manuscript Treatise on Watercolour.[55]

• Allthorpe-Guyton, Marjorie (1977). John Thirtle, 1777–1839: Drawings in Norwich Castle Museum. London: Norfolk Museums Service. ISBN 978-0-903101-23-3.
• Beard, Geoffrey; Gilbert, Christopher, eds. (1986). Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660–1840. Leeds – via British History Online.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Church, Arthur Herbert (1890). The Chemistry of Paints and Painting. London: Seeley & Co. OCLC 1147806133.
• Clifford, Derek Plint (1965). Watercolours of the Norwich School. London: Cory, Adams & Mackay. OCLC 1624701.
• Cundall, Herbert Minton (1920). The Norwich School. London: Geoffrey Holme Ltd. OCLC 472125860.
• Dickes, William Frederick (1906). The Norwich School of Painting: being a full account of the Norwich exhibitions, the lives of the painters, the lists of their respective exhibits, and descriptions of the pictures. London; Norwich: Jarrold & Sons Ltd. OCLC 192940599.
• Fawcett, Trevor (1978). "Eighteenth-Century Art in Norwich". The Volume of the Walpole Society. London: Pitman Press. 46: 71–90. ISSN 0141-0016. JSTOR i40086427.
• Hamlin, Philip Edward (1986). Rosary Cemetery: Monumental Inscriptions 1819–1986 & Burials 1821–1837. Norfolk Genealogy. Vol. 18. Norwich: Norfolk & Norwich Genealogical Society. OCLC 16517725.
• Hardie, Martin (1966). Water-colour Painting in Britain: The Romantic Period. Vol. II. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7134-0717-4. (registration required)
• Hemingway, Andrew (1977). "John Thirtle at Norwich". The Burlington Magazine. 119 (893): 588–591. ISSN 0007-6287. JSTOR 878848.
• Kitson, Sydney D. (1982). The Life of John Sell Cotman. London: Rodart Reproductions Ltd. ISBN 978-0-9503307-1-6.
• Moore, Andrew W. (1985). The Norwich School of Artists. Her Majesty's Stationery Office & Norwich Museums Service. ISBN 978-0-11-495239-6.
• Scott, Peter Kennedy (1998). A Romantic Look at Norwich School Landscapes. Ipswich: Acer Art Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9534711-1-9.
• Searle, Geoffrey R. (2015). Etchings of the Norwich School. Norwich: Lasse Press. ISBN 978-0-9568758-9-1.
• Walpole, Josephine (1997). Art and Artists of the Norwich School. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 978-0-9559320-4-5.

• Works by Thirtle held in the Norfolk Museums Collections
• Works by Thirtle in the Victoria and Albert Museum
• Works by Thirtle in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut
• Works by Thirtle (including several prints by Thomas Lound after Thirtle) at the British Museum

• Photographs of the buildings of Magdalen Street, Norwich by the photographer George Plunkett. The photographs were taken prior to the demolition of the area of Norwich where the Thirtle family lived and worked, including Elephant Yard and Thirtle's house.