Lot 1: Alexander Cozens (1717-1786)

A coastal landscape with a ruined tower signed 'Alex r Cozens' (lower left, on the mount) and numbered '12' (upper left) pencil, brush and black ink, and brown wash, on prepared paper, on the artist's original mount 33/4 x 6 in. (9.5 x 15.2 cm.) PROVENANCE Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 18 March 1980, lot 32. with Agnew's, London, December 1980. Private Collection until 2000. with Agnew's, London, 2001. EXHIBITION London, Agnew's, 128th Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, 2001, no. 2, illustrated in colour. NOTES A group of similar drawings by Cozens was sold in these Rooms, 20 October 1970, lots 29 - 33, from the collection of Sir John Dimsdale, Bt. Lot 31 (illustrated) is particularly close in composition to the present drawing, as is a drawing in the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, M.W.I. no. 832. Drawings such as these were contemporary with Cozens's Essay to Facilitate the Inventing of Landskips, intended for Students in the Art, 1759. Cozens illustrated his essay with eight such 'rude black sketches' or 'blots'. Each drawing referred to a 'stile of composition' and took the form of outline landscape sketches. A drawing of identical size is illustrated in K. Sloan, Alexander and John Robert Cozens: The Poetry of Landscape, New Haven and London, 1986, p. 31.