ALEXANDER COZENS
(1717-1786)
 

A Rocky Wooded Landscape with an Eagle and its Prey

c.1785

sepia wash on paper,

46 x 62.2 cm

inscribed: Alexander Cozens

P.584

An unusually ‘Sublime’ subject for Cozens which surely owes something to the rocky landscapes of Salvator Rosa. It is noteworthy that the first owner was a fellow watercolourist, Thomas Sunderland (1744-1823).

Although born in Russia, Cozens was not the son of Peter the Great as was once believed. He was educated and trained as an artist in London. He became a drawing master and a popular tutor among the aristocracy and gentry, forming a close relationship with William Beckford (1759-1844). His best-known work was a treatise, which proposed the use of random ‘blots’, developing an idea of Leonardo da Vinci (see P.446 for details). This led to Beckford describing him as ‘almost as full of systems as the Universe’.

His landscapes, usually in monochrome wash, are essays in this type of abstraction which, as Andrew Wilton has written, ‘often attain an otherwordly poetry which must have influenced his son, John Robert’.

EJ 

PROVENANCE: Christie’s 31 March 1787; Thomas Sunderland; Miss Joan Sunderland; Randall Davies, 1931; Mrs Walter Sedgwick; Sotheby’s 27 June 1968 lot 70; Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, from whom purchased by Gallery, July 1968.

EXHIBITIONS:   Alexander Cozens, London, Tate Gallery, 1946, no.46 as The Eagles Nest.