Lot 1662
JOHN SELL COTMAN (1782-1842)
CROWLAND ABBEY, LINCOLNSHIRE
Signed, pencil
39 x 29.5cm.
* Crowland (or Croyland) is a ruined 12th Century Benedictine Abbey in Lincolnshire, partially demolished shortly after its dissolution in 1539. Views by Cotman of the dramatic remains are in the Tate (1804) and British Museum (1807). Further examples from the same viewpoint but in a larger format are in Hull and Norwich and (at one time) there was another version in the Marquis of Stafford's collection at Trentham Park.
The artist's visits to the site were inspirational for him and moved him to rapture. He wrote to his patron Dawson Turner in September 1804 that `Croyland is most delicious .. I feel my pen incapable of describing it `tis so magnificent, `tis most magnificent .. there is not one upright line in the Composition therefore let not the Botanists criticise when they come to see it & they find me out of the perpendicular.`
Nonetheless, Cotman had some difficulties with local villagers He disliked the `paltry Inn full of the worst company I ever heard` and so bothersome were his interruptions as he worked that he `was obliged to give one of the ringleaders a sound flogging.` Despite these adversities, Cotman `finished three sketches which are quite sufficient to give a good report of the place`. Two works were shown at the RA in 1805 (nos 509 and 626) but it is not clear which of Cotman's various interpretations these were. Thomas Girtin had stood on almost exactly the same spot to draw the abbey in 1797. (See Miklos Rajnai, John Sell Cotman , London, 1982, pp.88-89)
