John Sell Cotman

(Norwich 1782-1842 London)

Ely Cathedral, from the South West, circa 1804

Footnotes

Provenance
With Walker's Galleries, London, by 1940
Sale, Christie's, London, 3 March 1970, lot 90 (bt Fine Art Society, 650 gns)
With The Fine Art Society, April 1978 from whom purchased by the present owner's father (for £2550)
Private Collection, UK

Literature
T. McGreevy, 'In the World's Art Centres: London,' The Studio, March 1940

This watercolour was known to Cotman scholars from a photograph in the Witt Library, but its whereabouts were a mystery until it recently came to light. It is based on a drawing of 1804 now in the collection of the Leeds City Art Gallery (see: Cotmania.org/works-of-art/209575). Cotman has painted Ely cathedral seen from the south west on a point along the Cambridge road, and to its left is the spire of Saint Mary's church. Writing to his friend and patron Dawson Turner on 18 August 1804 about his trip to Croyland and Peterborough Cotman said: 'I visited Ely from Cambridge. The day was bad, but the Minster is superb, very superior to Peterborough, in my opinion, as to grotesque beauty. I saw it during my getting completely wet, though to great advantage - lighted up by the last rays of the sun and a violent thunderstorm passing over. The lightning seemed to dart immediately upon the Roof' (see: S.D. Kitson, The Life of John Sell Cotman, 1982, p. 72). Despite these dramatic weather conditions the related pencil drawing is simply inscribed at the top, 'high cloud, sky greyish'.