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Mountain landscape

Maker

(artist)
1717-1786

Title

Mountain landscape

Date of Production

1775 - 1780

Medium

traces of graphite, brown wash on brown-prepared laid paper, laid down on a mount

Dimensions

Height: 23.3 cm
Width: 31.3 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.1152

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords




Label Text

The colour of the paper may be accounted for by the artist's occasional practice of rendering it transparent with turpentine, or varnish and turpentine, a process which allowed him to trace the random shape of a blot and use it as the basis for a wash landscape. Cozens had evolved this procedure over a lengthy period and described it in 'A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape' published in 1785. Whether or not this drawing was such a 'blot', the resulting landscape is schematic and stylistically linked to drawings produced in this way.

Provenance

Henry Edward Home-Drummond-Moray (1846-1911); Thomas Agnew & Sons (London); purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), L.2228b, n.d. (£6); Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Courtauld Connects Regional Programme - Radical Drawing, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, 18/10/2019-19/01/2020

The Witt Collection - Four centuries of drawings, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 03/04/2004-20/06/2004

The Northern Landscape: Flemish, Dutch and British Drawings from the Courtauld Collections, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 03/09/1986-30/11/1986; The Drawing Center, New York, 08/04/1986-26/07/1986 ...More

Mantegna to Cezanne - Master Drawings from the Courtauld, British Museum, London, 24/02/1983-19/06/1983

English Landscape Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 01/06/1979-01/09/1979

Exhibition of Drawings and Watercolours from the Spooner and Witt Collections, Australia, New Zealand, 1976-78

English Landscape Drawings [catalogue not found], Rye Art Gallery, England, 1971

English Landscape Drawings from the Witt Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 01/01/1965-01/05/1965

Englische Aquarelle, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, and China, 1963-64

Seventy Years of British Painting, London & England, 1960

Some British Drawings on loan to the National Gallery of Canada from the Collection of Sir Robert Witt, American Federation of the Arts, Washington, D.C. and nine cities in the USA, 1951

Some British Drawings on loan to the National Gallery of Canada from the Collection of Sir Robert Witt, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1949 - 1950

Drawings and paintings by Alexander Cozens, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield; Tate Gallery, London, 1946

catalogue untraced, San Francisco, 1938

Exhibition of late 18th and early 19th Century Art, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1933 (Jun.-Jul.) ...Less

Literature

The Northern Landscape. Flemish, Dutch and British Drawings from the Courtauld Collections, The Drawing Center, New York; Courtauld Institute Galleries, 1986
no. 82
Illus. p. 189

The Northern Landscape: Flemish, Dutch and British Drawings from the Courtauld Collections, Courtauld Gallery, London, 1986
cat. no. 82
Illus. p. 189

Mantegna to Cezanne: Master Drawings from the Courtauld, British Museum, London, 1983
cat. no. 80
Fig. p. 87 ...More

English Landscape Drawings and Watercolours, Courtauld Gallery, London, 1979
cat. no. 9

Exhibition of Drawings and Watercolours from the Spooner and Witt Collections, Australia, New Zealand, 1976 - 1978
cat. no. 5

English Landscape Drawings from the Witt Collection, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London, 1965
cat. no. 20

Exhibition of British water-colour painting during three centuries, China, 1963
no. 6
Illus. repr.
different catalogues for China and Berlin venues (see below)

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1963-64, Englische Aquarelle
unpag.

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 14

Some British Drawings on loan to the National Gallery of Canada from the Collection of Sir Robert Witt, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1949-50
no. 15

Exhibition of late 18th and early 19th Century Art, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1933 ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: centre: "D" (not found in Heawood).

Inscription: Recto: upper right corner, graphite, the '4' written over a '5': "54". Mount (historic), Recto: lower left, grey wash: "Alexr. Cozens.". Mount (historic), Verso: upper left corner, graphite: "10"; upper centre, graphite, scribbled over: "85"; centre, graphite, Witt number: "1152"; lower left, graphite: "Ownd"; lower right, graphite, erased: "me/7/" [could be a “9“]; lower right, graphite: "#1".

Collector's mark: Mount, Verso: lower right corner, stamped in black:Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b).

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