Archive: SDK Sydney Decimus Kitson Archive
Reference Number: SDK/1/2/1/2
Page: insert p 14 verso
Description
Letter from Paul Oppé
letter
Date: 03 Oct 1927
Transcription
{letter}
October 3rd 1927
18 Cheyne Gardens
Chelsea
S.W.3.
Dear Sir,
Yes, I was thinking of your drawing of the Arquebusier when I wrote the passage that you quote. They and all Derwent Wood’s other Cotmans came to him from his mother & my notes seem to shew that she was the Miss Maw born about 1825 for whom these toys were made & whose father bought the landscapes from Cotman. I have, however, long wondered whether this Miss Maw may not have been Derwent Wood’s grandmother, because the dates don’t quite seem to fit; and I meant to take some opportunity of asking Derwent Wood about it. The point is of some importance because this is the chief, perhaps the only, source of the account of Cotman’s ‘fermented paste’ technique & now that I find that neither of the two men whom I thought most likely to have ascertained the facts, have done so, I