Cotmania. Vol. III. 1928-9

one of the ultimate things in art, that become more and more rare each year as they are absorbed into great collections at home and abroad - things like a superb Rembrandt etching, a Durer engraving, or a Cotman water-colour, the value inevitably increases with the march of time. Who can say what the American millionaire will be paying for Cotman in a decade or two?
I well remember being offered a beautiful drawing full of colour, about the same size as "The Shepherd," and I hesitated to purchase on account of the possibility of not being able to find a buyer, much though I admired its luminous intensity. As one who has collected and arranged many exhibitions of English Water-colour drawings, nothing has been more gratifying than to see in the course of years that one's choice and judgement in the past have been justified, and that others have profited by one's own adventures.
At the opening of the first few exhibitions I was always anxious as to whether my selection would have the approval of the curators of Public Galleries, who were generally among the earliest visitors. They were usually the first to secure the best examples, and many of the Cotmans which have been shown at 118, New Bond Street are now in public collections.
If any effort can be made to get back, at a much higher price, some of those drawings from private collectors who secured them, the invariable answer is "I am not selling," and often, "I am leaving them to a museum." The magnificent drawing of "Acle Flats and Marshes near Norwich" was sold in 1912 to Dr. -- of Norwich, who, when asked if he would part with it, said "Oh no, that is going to a museum, however tempting the offer."
The drawing of "The Shepherd," now in the possession of Henry Bell, Esq., whose international fame as a financier has not over-shadowed his connoisseurship both of drawings and etchings, was previously in the collection of Mr C.E. Hughes, author of that most valuable reference book "Early English Water-colour," and the translator and annotator of the standard work on R. P. Bonington.
Any one fortunate to possess the catalogue of the "Norwich Art Circle - Ninth Exhibition-1888" will find a biography of Cotman and find reproductions of his work. Other good biographers are to be found in "The Studio," special numbers - "Masters of Landscape Painting" (1903) by Laurence Binyon, "the Norwich School" (1920) by H. M. Cundall, and the "Water-colour drawings of John Sell Cotman" (1923) by A. P. Oppé.
Many of my readers will remember the wonderful Loan Collection of water-colours by Cotman which was exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1922.
Augustus Walker.