JOHN ROBERT COZENS

(1752-1797)

Distant View of Windsor Castle from the South West

after 1787

watercolour on paper

49.2 x 69.5 cm

P.295

Cozens’ drawings of English subjects are dated to the last decade of his life. They are generally considered to lack the poetry of his finest Italian views perhaps due to failing health. This is certainly the finest of his English drawings and Oppé considers that it still bears ‘something of character’ of the Italian drawings while Francis Hawcroft praises the ‘nobility in the composition’ (1971 exhib. cat., p.10).

Son of Alexander, John Robert was born in London. Despite his father’s many theories on the practice of art, J. R. did not paint solely from his imagination. From 1793, he suffered from mental illness and spent his final years in the care of Dr Thomas MONRO. The doctor acquired a number of his works, which Monro made available for a number of young artists to copy at his ‘Academy’, including GIRTIN and TURNER. John CONSTABLE considered John Robert Cozens to be ‘the greatest genius that ever touched landscape’, describing his work as ‘all poetry’.

EJ/CB

PROVENANCE: William Smith F.S.A; bequeathed to his brother George; by descent to Mrs A.D. Cowan, from whom bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd., purchased by Gallery, July 1959.

EXHIBITIONS: Primitives to Picasso, London, R.A., 1962, no.366; Watercolours and Drawings from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1962, no.63; English Watercolours and Drawings from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, Reading, Reading Museum and Art Gallery, 1965, no.10; Watercolours from Bedford, Norwich, Norwich Castle Museum, 1965, no.8; Watercolours by John Robert Cozens, Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery & London, V&A, 1971, no.98; The English Tradition: an exhibition of watercolours from two private collections, Bedford, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, 1972, no.29; British Watercolours: A Golden Age 1750-1850, Louisville, Kentucky, J.B. Speed Art Museum, 1977, no.16.

REFERENCES: C.F. Bell, Some Additions and Notes to the Twenty-third Volume of the Walpole Society, 1947, p.12, no.447; A.P. Oppé, Alexander and John Robert Cozens, 1952, pl.45; A. Bury, ‘Cecil Higgins Art Gallery: Illustrated Guide’, Old Water-colour Society’s Club, 1961, vol.36, pp.31-2, pl. X; L. Herrmann, British Landscape Painting, 1970; K. Sloan, Alexander and John Robert Cozens: Poetry of Landscape, 1986, p.160.