The Cotman Collection | 18

Cotmania. Vol. XII. 1937

Archive: SDK Sydney Decimus Kitson Archive
Reference Number: SDK/1/2/1/12
Page: insert p 8 recto

  • Description

    Pencil sketches by John Sell Cotman of Normandy and Norfolk (chiefly of Normandy).

    Letter to S.D. Kitson from [C.P] [one of the Trustees of the British Museum], regarding a scrapbook of 50-60 pencil sketches gifted to the British Museum and once owned by R. H. Inglis Palgrave and before him by the daughters of Dawson Turner.

    Date: 15 Feb 1937

  • Transcription

    {letter}
    CHISELHAMPTON HOUSE,
    STADHAMPTON,
    OXFORD.
    15th February, 1937.

    Dear Sydney,
    At the Trustees meeting at the B. M. on Saturday we were shown a gift recently made to the Museum by Mrs. Rowland Barker of Felixstowe. It was a scrap-book containing a number of small pencil sketches by Cotman, of Normandy and Norfolk, but chiefly of Normandy. The book had belonged to R. H. Inglis Palgrave, and according to him it had belonged to the daughters of Dawson Turner, who had got hold of various sketches by Cotman when he was their drawing master, and pasted them into the book.

    Quite a number had been already removed, but I suppose there were 50 or 60 small pencil drawings altogether of places like Jumiѐges, Mortain, Gournay and St. Georges (de Boscherville?). The Norfolk ones, with the exception of Slo[[w]]ley Church, were not named.

    I don't know whether this is of any interest at all, but I thought you might like to know.

    Yours ever,
    [C. P.]

Pencil sketches by John Sell Cotman of Normandy and Norfolk (chiefly of Normandy).