AFTER JOHN SELL COTMAN (1782-1842). Greta Bridge, Yorkshire,...

Estimate

£600 - £800

AFTER JOHN SELL COTMAN (1782-1842). Greta Bridge, Yorkshire, watercolour, laid down on backing mount, 9 x 13in. The original version of this subject was painted by Cotman in 1805, at the time of a visit to his patron, Francis Cholmeley, at Rokeby Park, North Yorkshire. Cotman produced a second slightly altered version in 1810, and his son, Miles Edmund Cotman, some years later produced an etching of the same subject, as a tribute to his father. John Sell Cotman's original 1805 watercolour could not find a purchaser in the artist's own lifetime and stayed in the artist's own possession, possibly until the posthumous sale of his work in 1843, but more probably remained in the Cotman family's possession until 1862 when it is believed to have been bought by James Reeve. Reeve was known to be an amateur artist in his spare time (as well as a noted collector and connoisseur) when not involved in his responsibilities as Curator of the Castle Museum, Norwich, where he worked for over 73 years. It was indeed due to Reeve's tireless championing of the Norwich School and John Sell Cotman in particular, through a series of loans and exhibitions, that Cotman's reputation began to equal that of Turner by the latter decades of the nineteenth century. This watercolour would appear to date from c.1880-1910. That would coincide with the time that James Reeve actually owned Cotman's original watercolour of the same subject. The possibility remains that this work could even have been painted by Reeve himself as a keepsake, before he sold the original to the British Museum in 1902.