Scene on a beach with figures

Request to view

This object can be requested via email from the Prints & Drawings Study Room

V&A South Kensington
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level H

Artist/Maker	Cotman, John Sell (artist)
Place of origin	Britain (made)

Pencil sketch depicting a beach scene. Inscribed with brief colour notes.

Object details

Category	Drawings
Object type	Drawing
Title	Scene on a beach with figures (generic title)
Materials and techniques	Pencil sketch Pencil Drawing
Brief description	Pencil sketch by John Sell Cotman depicting a beach scene. Great Britain, ca. 1800-42.
Physical description	Pencil sketch depicting a beach scene. Inscribed with brief colour notes.
Dimensions	Height: 2.75in Width: 4.25in Dimensions taken from departmental notes
Credit line	From the collection of Sir Henry Theobald
Subjects depicted	Beaches Coasts
Bibliographic references	Sydney Kitson discussing material similar to E.638-E.731-1925 states: "It seems that Cotman, like his great contemporary Turner, never destroyed any sketch, however slight, but kept all such memoranda as material for his finished work. During his second period of residence at Norwich (1823-1834) he and his family collected these sketches together and gummed them onto sheets of rough paper, four to twenty on a sheet according to size. The words 'in use', in Cotman's writing, are inscribed on the top of several of these sheets. Many of the sketches are torn from his earlier sketchbooks, and some are dated: others are on the back of any piece of paper come to hand- a clergyman's visiting card, a request for a payment from a tradesman, or bits of trial pulls from his own etchings. Unfortunately, Cotman's workshop was not, - as was Turner's - kept together and bequeathed to the nation, but was dispersed after his death. These sketches probably passed to his son Miles Edmund Cotman, who died in 1858. They were then put up in lots, seventeen or eighteen sheets to a lot, and sold at auction in Norwich. Recently I have been able to study three such lots, representing about 500 sketches; while about a hundred more, gummed on similar sheets, were acquired two or three years ago by the Victoria & Albert Museum". See 'John Sell Cotman' by Sydney D. Kitson, in the 7th Annual volume of Old Water-Colour's Society Club, 1929-1930, p.1. Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1925, London: Board of Education, 1926.
Collection	Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number	E.648-1925

Explore the Collections contains over a million catalogue records, and over half a million images. It is a working database that includes information compiled over the life of the museum. Some of our records may contain offensive and discriminatory language, or reflect outdated ideas, practice and analysis. We are committed to addressing these issues, and to review and update our records accordingly.

You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.

Suggest feedback

Record created	June 30, 2009
Record URL	https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O764451/scene-on-a-beach-with-drawing-cotman-john-sell/

Download as: JSON IIIF Manifest

Object details

About this object record

You may also like