Cotmania. Vol. XII. 1937

{Illustrated London News magazine article by S.D. Kitson about Cotman's use of sketches as stiffeners}

MORE COTMAN DISCOVERIES - SKETCHES AS "BACKINGS":
ORIGINAL SKETCHES BY JOHN SELL COTMAN (1782-1842), THE FAMOUS NORWICH PAINTER, USED BY HIM AS STIFFENERS AT THE BACK OF FINISHED DRAWINGS: ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES, AND IDENTIFICATIONS OF SUBJECTS.
By SYDNEY D. KITSON. (See Illustrations on the opposite page.)

In The Illustrated London News of Sept. 19 last was told the story of how discoveries had been made of sketches by John Sell Cotman: of how Mr. Kennedy North, the well-known expert, when overhauling and conserving the wonderful collection of Cotman water-colours belonging to Mr. Russell Colman at Crown Point, Norwich, had found pasted to the backs of no fewer than eight of these drawings unfinished sketches by the artist. It seems that Cotman mounted his own drawings and that he sometimes used as stiffeners behind them old scraps of paper on which he had begun, and afterwards abandoned, some other subject. The first of these discoveries, which was illustrated in the issue of Sept. 19, was a view of a building on a wooded bluff, with cattle watering in a pond below. This view has since been identified, by means of a pencil sketch in another collection, as Gilling Castle, near Helmsley, in Yorkshire. This superb drawing, done, if we may judge by its technique and handling, in 1804 or 1805, was thrown aside unfinished. Twenty-five years later it became the "stiffener" for Cotman's famous drawing of Crosby Hall, which is dated 1830. It seems, therefore, that Cotman was in the habit, over a considerable number of years, of using up his old sketches - unsaleable because of their lack of finish - as material for mounting his more elaborate drawings.

Further evidence has come to light which shows that this practice was begun very early in Cotman's career as an artist; and although the sketches here illustrated cannot vie in importance with those found in the Crown Point collection, yet they corroborate Cotman's methods as exemplified in our previous article. A seascape - surely one of the earliest of a long series of such subjects - is signed and dated 1801 (No. 3), when the artist was nineteen years old.

When this drawing was held up to a strong light it was noticed that there was a sketch on the face of the mount below (No. 4). Here Cotman, extemporising for his own amusement, and with the belief that no other eye would ever see his scribble, has drawn the head of a girl resting upon a plate and surrounded by foliage. Below there is a landscape in vignette and his own name in full, "John Sell Cotman, 1801," written in his most flamboyant script.

Another water-colour drawing by Cotman, also dated 1801 (No. 5), depicts shipping moored at the bank of a tidal river. It was