Ink on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/james-tissot-2048" aria-label="More by James Tissot" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">James Tissot</a>
Ramsgate
Bequeathed by J.R. Holliday 1927
architecture
balcony
balustrade
chair
domestic
England
England, South East
England, Southern
features
furnishings
harbour
interiors
Kent
living room
objects
places
Ramsgate, Ramsgate Harbour
seascapes and coasts
ship, sailing
society
table
transport: water
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
<p>This pen-and-ink drawing shows a room overlooking the seaside town of Ramsgate. The beach and harbour were popular subjects for 19th-century artists, but Tissot’s unusual interior view shows only a glimpse of boats. He uses the linear medium to weave a pattern of masts, architecture and furniture.</p><p>Resorts like Ramsgate were often settings for modern-life novels and plays such as those of Wilkie Collins. The empty room suggests absence and events past or yet to come. Tissot added figures to the scene in three other versions of this composition.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2013</em></p>
paper unique ink
3 May 2013 – 29 March 2015
2015-03-29
3 May 2013 – 29 March 2015
2015-03-29
2013-05-03
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2013-05-03
Gallery 8
Collection based display
12 October 2019 – 13 September 2020
2020-09-13
22 March 2020 – 13 September 2020
2020-09-13
2020-03-22
Musée d’Orsay (Paris, France)
2019-10-12
James Tissot, 1836-1902
Loan-out
Ramsgate
support: 251 × 352 mm
Bequeathed by J.R. Holliday 1927
<div class="text">
<p>This pen-and-ink drawing shows a room overlooking the seaside town of Ramsgate. The beach and harbour were popular subjects for 19th-century artists, but Tissot’s unusual interior view shows only a glimpse of boats. He uses the linear medium to weave a pattern of masts, architecture and furniture.</p>
<p>Resorts like Ramsgate were often settings for modern-life novels and plays such as those of Wilkie Collins. The empty room suggests absence and events past or yet to come. Tissot added figures to the scene in three other versions of this composition.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2013-10-29T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>James Tissot</b> 1836-1902</p>
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/tissot-ramsgate-n04295" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04295</span></a> <b>Ramsgate</b> <i>c</i>.1876</p>
<p>Not inscribed 
<br/>Pen and ink on blue-grey paper, 9 3/4 x 13 7/8 (24.7 x 35) Bequeathed by J.R. Holliday 1927 
<br/><i>Prov</i>: [? Charles Fairfax Murray, London]; J.R. Holliday, Birmingham 
<br/><i>Lit</i>: Michael Justin Wentworth, <i>James Tissot: Catalogue Raisonné of his Prints</i> (exh. catalogue Minneapolis Institute of Arts, May-July 1978), p.106, repr. pl.22a</p>
<p>This appears to be a study for a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drypoint" title="Glossary definition for 'Drypoint'"><span>drypoint</span></a> called 'Ramsgate' (<i>J.J. Tissot: Eaux-fortes, Manière Noire, Pointes Sèches</i>, Paris 1886, No.16 repr.), which is dated on the plate 1876 and which shows the same <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> in reverse, but with the addition of three figures: a woman seated in the chair in the foreground; a man behind her on the left (right in the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a>), seated between the table and the curtain; and a girl on the right (the drawing's left), standing behind the chair, with her hands resting on the window and turning to look towards the older woman. (Tissot's early drypoints, such as this one and the one made from <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/N04271" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'N04271');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>N04271</span></a>
, were copied directly from the drawings or paintings on which they were based and were then reversed in the printing, whereas the later drypoints, such as the one made from <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/N05302" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'N05302');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>N05302</span></a>, were drawn in reverse and therefore came out the same way round). Apart from including the figures and having several very minor differences, such as a slightly more substantial chair of the same type in the foreground and one of the books rather differently placed on the table, the drypoint follows the drawing very closely. They are also the same size.</p>
<p>Although there seems to be no painting which corresponds exactly with this drypoint, there are two which show the same room from more or less the same viewpoint (and the same way round as the drawing), but with different figures and various other changes. The earlier of these, probably done soon after the drawing and the drypoint, is 'A Passing Storm', 76 x 101.5cm, now in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, Canada. This includes a girl reclining in the chair on the right and a young man standing outside the room on the balcony (with the implication that a quarrel has just taken place between them), and also has a number of minor differences, such as a silver tray with coffee things on the circular table, a different type of chair on the left, books differently arranged on the table on the right, and so on. The other <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>, 'Room overlooking the Harbour', is much smaller, 25.5 x 33cm that is to say more or less the same size as this drawing and the drypoint. Instead of the circular table, it has a long rectangular table laid for a meal, with an elderly man seated at the left reading a newspaper and a young woman seated in an upright chair at the right. It is dated by James Laver <i>c</i>.1881, presumably on the basis of the woman's dress and hair style.</p>
<p>The site is apparently a house in Goldsmid Place (now Harbour Parade) in Ramsgate.</p>
<p><b>Published in</b>: 
<br/>Ronald Alley, <i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.720-1, reproduced p.720</p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-15T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
architecture balcony balustrade chair domestic England England, South East England, Southern features furnishings harbour interiors Kent living room objects places Ramsgate, Ramsgate Harbour seascapes and coasts ship, sailing society table transport: water UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions