Explorations in the footsteps of Turner, Cotman, Ruskin and others with Professor David Hill
2018 brings an especially Sublime sighting. On 30 January, Christie's, New York offers a superb late Turner watercolour of ‘The Lake of Lucerne from Brunnen, with a Steamer’. This is being sold by a private American collector, and was last seen in Britain when it was sold by Christie’s in London in 1976. The sale … Continue reading Turner at Brunnen, Lake Lucerne
This is the second part of an article exploring Cotman's association with St Benet's Abbey, Norfolk. In 1811 Cotman committed himself to a major series of etchings of Norfolk antiquarian subjects. The work was to become his primary preoccupation for the next five or six years, and he threw himself into it with several excursions … Continue reading Cotman’ and St Benet’s Abbey: Part 2
This is a further instalment in a series that retraces Cotman’s footsteps through his native county of Norfolk. Here we visit the isolated site of St Benet’s Abbey. This stands in a marshy plain near the junction of the rivers Ant and Bure about ten miles directly ENE of Norwich, but much further by road, … Continue reading Cotman and St Benet’s Abbey, Norfolk: Part 1
This article offers a new identification for a watercolour exhibited in the recent ‘Turner et la Couleur’ exhibition at the Hotel de Caumont, Aix en Provence 4 May – 18 September 2016 and afterwards in ‘J M W Turner: Adventures in Colour’ at Turner Contemporary, Margate, 8 October 2016 – 8 January 2017. Its title … Continue reading J.M.W.Turner: Ehrenbreitstein from Neuendorf
One of the Turner highlights of 2016 was Ian Warrell’s splendid exhibition of ‘Turner et la Couleur’ which showed at the Hotel de Caumont, Centre d’Art at Aix en Provence 4 May to 18 September, and then as J M W Turner: Adventures in Colour’ [and STILL, FOR ONE MORE WEEK ONLY] at Turner Contemporary, … Continue reading Update: Turner and Sisteron
This is the third article in an occasional series exploring Normandy subjects in the Cotman collection at Leeds Art Gallery. In September 2016 I spent the month travelling through Normandy and visited all the sites represented at Leeds. Cotman’s port of landing on his first visit to Normandy in 1817 was Dieppe. In the first … Continue reading In Cotman’s Footsteps through Normandy: #3 Arques la Bataille, near Dieppe
This is the second of an occasional series of articles that I will post as I work through Cotman’s Normandy subjects at Leeds Art Gallery. In September 2016 I had the opportunity to spend the month travelling through Normandy and visited the sites of all of the subjects represented at Leeds. Dieppe was his port … Continue reading In Cotman’s Footsteps through Normandy: #2 Dieppe Castle and Harbour
This is the first of an occasional series of articles that I will post as I work through Cotman’s Normandy subjects at Leeds Art Gallery. I am now in the latter stages of cataloguing all of the eight hundred (or more) works in the collection. In September 2016 I had the opportunity to spend the … Continue reading In Cotman’s Footsteps through Normandy: #1 Dieppe, East End of the Church of St Jacques
SublimeSites.co has been silent for the past few months, but I have not been idle, nor laid low. Some readers even emailed to enquire after my possible demise. I cannot overstate how grateful I am for your concern. The less dramatic truth is that SublimeSites activities have been pushed to one side by my ongoing … Continue reading Sublime slumbers
This is the first of an intended series of articles that relates the discovery of two important Greek antiquities at Bretton Hall and explores their context and origins. I has taken me twenty-five years to get round to telling this story. I became involved in 1991 when I realised that one piece was an altar … Continue reading The Bretton Hall Marbles: #1, The Ashtray and the Million Pound Plant Pot
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