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Lot description
John Sell Cotman, British 1782-1842- St Mary's Abbey, York; pencil on paper, signed 'JS Cotman' (lower right), inscribed 'St Marys Abbey / York' on the backing paper, 37.4 x 26.7 cm. Provenance: The artist; His sale, Christie's, May 1824. The Collection of Sir William Douglas, by whom given to his brother in law, F.G. Cotman; Thence by descent to Kenneth and Alice Cotman. Exhibited: Gainsborough's House, Sudbury, 'Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by J.S. Cotman', 4 November 1978-26 November 1978, no.61. Note: The sepia reed pen lines were added by Cotman himself before he sold the drawing at Christie's in May 1824. Cotman was a central member of the Norwich School of artists, having enjoyed the patronage of Dr Thomas Monro (1759-1833), through whom he encountered J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) and Thomas Girtin (1775-1802). Cotman produced various drawings of St Mary's Abbey in York, which informed an etching in his first series of 'Etchings by John Sell Cotman', dated 3 October 1810. The subject is the arch between the north aisle of the nave and the north transept of the abbey, which had been rebuilt in 1270-94 after the original building was destroyed by a fire, before being dissolved in 1539, at which point it was the richest religious house in the north. Other drawings of the same view by Cotman can be found in various collections, including the Huntington Art Museum in California [61.19] and Te Papa, National Museum of New Zealand [1957-0009-279]. An almost identical view was drawn by Paul Sandby Munn (1773-1845), with whom Cotman travelled to York in 1803, and it is possible that the artists produced their sketches side-by-side.