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All prices are
postage inclusive if over £25 and are all VAT
inclusive.......Any print will be reserved upon
receiving an email and kept for a week to allow a
cheque to arrive... Cotman's early paintings (before 1804) are
notable for their dark and stormy romanticism.
Some of this adopts the picturesque style of the
Norwich painter John Crome (1768-1824), and some
of it clearly borrows from the atmospheric style
of Thomas Girtin.
Around 1804 Cotman's style went through a
complete transformation toward greater light and
serene planes of transparent color. Why this
change occured is unknown, but it may have been
stimulated by the influence of John Varley
during 1801-04, when both attended the London
Sketching Club, and (I suspect) exposure to the
late Italian drawings of Francis Towne, who
lived in London from 1800.
Cotman's marriage in 1809 induced him to
return to Norwich to pursue his career as
drawing master. Around this time he also
significantly modified his "Greta" style,
probably to make his paintings more popular with
art collectors. And he burdened himself further
(at the request of the banker and amateur
antiquarian Dawson Turner) by making hundreds of
architectural drawings and etchings of ruins and
villages in Norfolk and Suffolk, transforming
the best of these drawings into etchings (shown
at right). Dawson Turner later sent Cotman to
Normandy in 1817, 1818 and 1820 to make more
architectural drawings. He clearly loved the
Normand countryside and made many fine paintings
of the area; in these he imitates the prismatic
palette and dominant orange hues of Joseph
Turner's middle style, and imitates the
topographical artist Samuel Prout in the
placement of figures. The etchings proved to be
an enormous labor, and he began to suffer from
severe depression. He moved back to Norwich to
teach, but was hounded by creditors.
Despite his enormous talent and compositional
skill, Cotman struggled throughout his later
years with family responsibilities, the tedious
burdens of drawing master, and increasingly
severe symptoms of depression. Around 1830 he
changed his painting style again, to much darker
and more massively composed imaginary
landscapes, painted on small sheets with a
watercolor medium made with rice paste that
imitated the thick texture of oil paints. But
Cotman died in obscurity (Ruskin and Turner
never mention him), and an appreciation of his
works did not begin until the late Victorian
era. Since then, however, his stature as a
watercolourist and etcher has only increased. by John Sell Cotman and Dawson
TURNER,Published by John and Arthur Arch,
Cornhill & J.S. Cotman Yarmouth, London and
Great Yarmouth, 1822. Large Folio. from a set of
100 full page engraved plates by Cotman.
Lithographs prepared by by Vincent Brooks, Day
& Son, Gate Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields and
also Sold by Chapman and Hall,
These journey's to Normandy were made in
1815, 1818 and 1819 and Cotman accompanied
Dawson Turner on these tours. The Turners were
in fact John Sell Cotman's chief benefactors and
patron.All plates are full foio page with the
lithograph laid to the centre of the page as per
published format ; no foxing; no mount ready to
frame. Rare underpriced gems £45
each Castle and Port of Gruneville
Image 44.5 cm x 20 cm Page 54.4 x 38
cm Chapel
Image 27.5 cm x 36 cm Page 54.4 x 38
cm
Architectural
& Classical Architecture
William
Green of
Ambleside.
Johannes
Kip. .
.Brittania Illustrata,
Oxonia
Illustrata./David
Loggan
Wilkinson/Select
Views
.Lake District
Sir
Henry
Alken..+
Sports
Gillray
..Cartoons
Humerous.Political....
pre 1830
Humerous.Political.......
post 1830
Encyclopedie
.
.Scientific.
Etchings.signed
in pencil
Etchings.
signed in plate only
Etchings.non
uk subjects
Engravings...larger
plate
.Colour
Woodcuts
. . mainly Deco
Wood
engravings.
. mainly Deco
Sonnerat
. .Indian watercolours
Extra's . .
Specials Odds
Prints,...
by Subject
Birds.
engravings
Birds..Cage
& Aviary
Birds.
Morris
.
Razorbill - Yellow Shanks
Fish prints
/Jonathan
Couch
Prints,...
by Illustrator
Directions ......A
the top of the hill
( being Wiltshire the main
town is the high numbers. and downhill)...We have a
one hour free parking slot outside the door and
deregulated parking a few yards further
Tisbury,
WILTSHIRE
SP3
6PS.

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John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) was
one of the finest English artists of the
Romantic era. The son of a Norwich barber turned
draper, Cotman taught himself drawing as a boy,
moved to London in 1798 "to learn to be a
painter" at age 16, found employment coloring
aquatints for Rudolph Ackermann, then joined in
1799 the informal "academy" run by Dr. Thomas
Munro. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in
1800, the year of his first sketching trip to
Wales, and may have sketched with Thomas Girtin
at Conwy, on the Wales north coast. In 1801 he
joined the Sketching Club started by Thomas
Girtin (who was then in Paris), and made his
living selling drawings for use as amateur
sketching patterns. In 1803-1805 he spent his
summers in Yorkshire, at the home of his patron
Francis Cholmeley (1783-1854) and the art
collector Walter Fawkes. Cotman moved back to
Norwich in 1806, joined the Norwich Society of
painters, and made his living as a drawing
master. During 1812-23 Cotman was based in
Yarmouth, near his lifelong patron Dawson Turner
(1775-1858); with Turner's support Cotman
travelled throughout southwest England and
Normandy, producing a large number of superb
architectural watercolors and etchings. Cotman
moved to London and was elected to the Old
Water-Colour Society in 1825, and in 1834 became
Professor of Drawing at King's College, London.
ACCOUNT OF A TOUR IN NORMANDY
Undertaken Chiefly for the Purpose of
Investigating the Architectural Antiquities of
the Duchy, with Observations on Its History, on
the Country, and on Its
Inhabitants.*** This
occurs in TWO formats one a large folio by
Cotman with lithographs in colorour the other a
cheaper octavo with etchings of the plates by
Mrs Turner***
. . .
