Near Durham

John Sell Cotman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In addition to working in oils and watercolors, Cotman was a prolific etcher, issuing his first prints in 1811. This etching comes from a group published in 1838 by Henry G. Bohn from Cotman’s plates for a set devoted to "principles of Landscape composition." The title of the series, Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), derives from that used by J. M. W. Turner in a famous 1807–9 series of prints in which the artist sought to elevate landscape as a poetic and sublime genre. Cotman’s most evocative images are decidedly more rustic than Turner’s. Near Durham centers on a medieval tower that once fronted a Norman church, with a ruined wall and buried arch shown in the background to suggest what was lost.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art