John Thirtle

John Thirtle's portrait miniature of his mother, Susannah

The surname Thirtle (sometimes spelt Thurtle or Thurtell)[2] is a form of Turkle, from Thor-ketil, the sacrificial cauldron for the god Thor.[3] John Thirtle.was the son of John Thirtle and his wife Susanna Lincoln (who married in 1776).[4] He was probably born in a house close to St Saviour's Church, Norwich, and was baptised at the church on 22nd June 1777.[5] A sister, Rachel, was baptised on 13 August 1780 and an older brother named James was baptised in 1785.[6] His parents were well-known members of the local community. His father, a bootmaker, worked in Elephant Yard, off Magdalen Street, and was an overseer of the poor as well as a churchwarden at St. Saviour's. Nothing is known of Thirtle's early boyhood or education.[7]

In 1790, the 13-year-old John was apprenticed to Benjamin Jagger of Norwich, the leading carver and gilder, picture dealer and printmaker in the city.[8][9][10] In about 1799 Thirtle moved to London to serve another apprenticeship, possibly under a Mr. Allwood,[7] again learning to make picture frames.[11] During his years as an apprentice in London he studied the works of John Sell Cotman at Rudulph Ackerman's print shop at 96, The Strand,[12] after Cotman had moved to the capital in about 1798.[13]

John Berney Crome - Woodland Scene, in a frame made by Thirtle. Click within the image to view the frame in more detail.

On successfully completing his years as an apprentice, Thirtle returned to Norwich 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.[11] He is recorded as having returned in 1805, when he exhibited five paintings at an exhibition of the Norwich Society of Artists. 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 extensive business activities, and particularly the production of his decorative picture frames,[14] led to his becoming one of the more financially successful members of the Norwich School, despite strong competition from Jeremiah and William Freeman, who dominated the Norwich framing market during this period.[15][16]

Several of Thirtle's own frames have survived and point to his fine craftmanship.[17] Many paintings by fellow members of the Norwich School were framed by Thirtle's business and bear his name on the frame, including those by John Sell Cotman, John Crome, Thomas Lound, James Sillett and Joseph Stannard.[15] At least one such framed painting, Vincent's Trowse Meadows, near Norwich, an oil on canvas that was first exhibited in 1828, was copied by Thirtle, who produced the same scene as a watercolour.[18] 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.[8]

(left) Map of St Saviours, Norwich (1886); (right) A 1906 photograph of the Magdalen Street building where Thirtle lived and worked

Paintings still in Thirtle's original frames can be dated as being before 1837, the year John Thirtle died. William Boswell, who took over the business that year, initially included "Late Thirtle" in brackets on his labels.[19] 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".[20]

Thirtle's earliest known work was The Windmill. This landscape painting seems to have been unusual, as many of his early works were portraits and paintings of other subjects, but by then he had begun to increase his output of landscapes, and to stand out as a master of the genre of watercolour painting.[13] Painted in 1800, The Windmill was catalogued by the Norwich Art Circle in 1886. In 1803 John Crome and Robert Ladbrooke formed the Norwich Society of Artists, a group that also included George 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 to be created outside London.[21] In the exhibition Thirtle showed five paintings out of the 71 exhibited by five artists: Crome, Ladbrooke, Hodgson, Dixon and Thirtle himself.[22]

He was probably a founder member of the Norwich School of Artists, but his membership of the Society was only first recorded three years after it was founded. His exhibited miniatures during the first years of the Society, but afterwards developed to become a landscape artist, notably of scenes of the rivers Yare and Wensum, and of thunderstorms.[23] He served as Vice-President of the Society from 1806 to 1812. His output of exhibited works declined from a peak of 17 (in 1806) until he exhibited only six works in 1817, and none the year after that, making a total of 97.[6] He exhibited only once outside Norwich, at the Royal Academy in 1808.[24]

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

On 26 October 1812 he married Elizabeth Miles of Felbrigg,[25] whose father was "of some means",[6] and whose sister Ann had married John Sell Cotman three years previously. John 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.[26] The two Miles sisters were themselves amateur painters, having shown their work at the Norwich Society of Artists exhibition of 1811.[27][15] There were probably no children produced from the marriage.[6]

In 1814 Thirtle was elected President of the Society, but he was one of three leading artists to secede from the Society in 1816, to form the Norfolk and Norwich Society of Artists.[6] The secession was caused by a disagreement over how the profits of the exhibitions should be used, and led to Robert Ladbrooke, James Sillett, Joseph Clover, Joseph Stannard and John 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.[28]

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 work, he exhibited nothing from 1818 to 1828.[15]

At some time, whilst John Sell 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.[29]

The tomb of John Thirtle and his wife, in the Rosary Cemetery, Norwich

It is known that 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.[15] 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.[6]

After the dissolution of the Norwich Society of Artists in 1833, its main artists, including Thirtle, continued to be active. He continued to produce picture frames as well as to paint river scenes, reminiscent of the works of Peter De Wint (1774-1849).[30]

He is known to have suffered from tuberculosis, then known as consumption, for many years. This greatly interfered with his work output, although 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.[31] The tomb-chest of John Thirtle and his wife can be found in Section E (Reference E759 Sq(uare)).[31] 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.[8] He left the sum of £2000 to his wife Elizabeth, a considerable sum of money in those days. She outlived him by many years, dying in 1882 at the age of ninety-five.[6]

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

Thirtle used an indigo pigment for producing fine greys. Those watercolours where the pigment was used have deteriorated because the pigment fades to red when exposed to light. This unfortunate reddening 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 in the past sometimes incorrectly attributed to John Thirtle.[37]

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.[38]

• Clifford, Derek Plint (1965). Watercolours of the Norwich School. 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). Art and Artists of the Norwich School. The Walpole Society. 46. London: Pitman Press. OCLC 71296442.
• Hamlin, P.E. (1986). Rosary Cemetery: Monumental Inscriptions 1819-1986 & Burials 1821-1837. Norfolk Genealogy. 18. Norwich: Norfolk & Norwich Genealogical Society.
• Hemingway, Andrew (1977). "John Thirtle at Norwich". The Burlington Magazine. 119 (893): 588–591. 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. HMSO/Norwich Museums Service. ISBN 978-0-11-495239-6.
• Searle, Geoffrey R. (2015). Etchings of the Norwich School. Norwich: Lasse Press. ISBN 978-0-9568758-9-1.
• Scott, Peter Kennedy (1998). A Romantic Look at Norwich School Landscapes. Ipswich: Acer Art Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9534711-1-9.
• Walpole, Josephine (1997). Art and Artists of the Norwich School. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 978-0-9559320-4-5.
• Wilson, R.M (1995). A dictionary of English surnames. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 446. ISBN 978-0-19-863146-0.

• Allthorpe-Guyton, Marjorie (1977). John Thirtle, 1777-1839: Drawings in Norwich Castle Museum. London: Norfolk Museums Service. ISBN 978-0-903101-23-3.
• Norfolk and Norwich Art Circle (1886). John Thirtle : Norwich Art Circle: catalogue of the third exhibition, held at the Society's Room, Old Bank of England Chambers, Norwich, July 1886. Norwich.
• Oppé, Adolf Paul (1939). Catalogue of loan exhibition of pictures illustrating the work of John Thirtle of the Norwich school, 1777-1839. Norwich: Norwich Castle Museum.

• 281 works by John Thirtle held in the Norfolk Museums Collections
• 10 works by John Thirtle in the Victoria and Albert Museum
• 13 works by John Thirtle in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut
• 31 works by John Thirtle at Artnet
• 25 works by John Thirtle (including several prints by Thomas Lound after Thirtle) at the British Museum
• 2 works by John Thirtle in the National Gallery of Canada
• Works by John Thirtle sold at auction according to Invaluable

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