English naturalist and artist (1794-1879). Autograph letter signed ("James Bulwer"). Aylsham. 4to. 3 pp on bifolium.
$ 408 / 350 €
(98038/BN63601)
To John Sell Cotman, a rushed but friendly letter discussing his days in the countryside, starting with an apology for not writing sooner: "I did intend long before this to have returned to town but I am so busy in settling myself & the garden that I have not time, besides I have been thrown back a few days by a severe cold". He talks extensively on his garden, and asks Cotman for a design for his newly discovered well: "I have discovered an old well in the garden or rather orchard, which has been arched over for ages - it is four feet diameter - only 14 feet deep & with 9 feet water now, if you have any design that is suitable to the virtuouso & to my pocket, you have a chance of seeing it put in execution.
If you send it me in reasonable time". Further he has a request for Cotman's son Edmund, who was also a painter: "to ask Edmund, if he has not began a little picture for me, to paint a companion to your mill, which is 21 Inches by 14 - I have no choice of subject so he may do as he pleases". Bulwer finishes the letter with a note on the weather in the countryside: "The country is lovely but the atmosphere most chilly". - The Reverend James Bulwer was a naturalist, amateur artist, collector and patron of the arts. During his time at Jesus College, Cambridge, he took drawing lessons from Cotman, and they developed a close friendship over the following years. Bulwer was an avid collector and he owned numerous paintings of Bristol, Somerset, and Norfolk, a considerable number of which were painted by John Sell Cotman and his son Miles Edmund Cotman..