The Cotman Collection | 10

The Cotman Letters 1804-1833

Archive: SDK Sydney Decimus Kitson Archive
Reference Number: SDK/1/3/1/2
Page: 10


  • Description

    Transcript of letter from John Sell Cotman about 'Croyland' (Crowland Abbey, Lincolnshire) 18th August 1804

    Transcript of letter from John Sell Cotman to Dawson Turner, 18/08/1804.

    Date: 18/08/1804

  • Transcription

    Croyland, Saturday August 18, 1804.

    Once more, my dear Sir, do I trifle with your time, but I hope you will excuse it. On tuesday last Mr. Gurney called upon me and said you and Mrs. Turner would Honor the Itinerant Artist with their Company. Happy, happy me, but it did not last long - Your Letter arrived - and damped each flattering, too flattering Hope. Then, Sir, I was sorry from selfish motives but now from a nobler and more cutting cause - your own pleasure. Croyland is most delicious, you know how I esteemed my Howden. This, oh! this is far, far superior. Castle Acre to it is as nothing. I am sorry I am obliged to paint this in so brilliant a manner as it precludes all hope of my ever seeing it now with you. - and yet I feel my pen incapable of describing it, ‘tis so magnificent - ‘tis most magnificent - The old part full of Sketches, the Door, the Window - in short, the whole wonderful. There is not one upright line in the Composition, therefore let not the Botanists criticise when they come and see it if they find it out of the perpendicular. Besides indeed, Sir, I have found out more Leaves of the kind I wanted to represent. I do not say I have represented them - and some with the stalks perpendicular and the leaf Horizontal -

    I passed through Thorney this morning and sketched the Abbey, but it is nothing worth. It is called the Thorney Boot Jack owing to its shape -
    In return for your Cat (?) Miss Mitchell [governess to the Dawson Turner Children] pray find out if you can a common expression in Lincolnshire. I took up a poor little interesting looking boy on the Road and as we chatted along we came to a sharp corner of the ditch which he said had been the Grave of a Man and a Woman. He described it thus, - “They giged it along, turned on to Stunt and wawbled over.” You will find the explanation at

Transcript of letter from John Sell Cotman about 'Croyland' (Crowland Abbey, Lincolnshire)  18th August 1804