The Abbatial House, Abbey of St. Ouen, Rouen
John Sell Cotman British
Not on view
On three trips to Normandy between 1817 and 1820 Cotman planned a series of etchings focused on French medieval architecture. His imaginative reconstruction of the Abbey of St. Ouen, which had been demolished in 1815–16 to enlarge Rouen’s town square, was likely stimulated by local distress over that loss. He transformed what had been an enclosed courtyard into a garden facade, enlivening the scene with figures in seventeenth-century costume. The imagery derives from engravings in J. F. de Pommeraye’s Histoire de l’Abbaye Royale de St. Ouen (1662), owned by Cotman’s English patron, Dawson Turner. Declaring the Abbey of St. Ouen "the best subject I ever touched on," Cotman exhibited four versions of it between 1824 and 1831; this one likely dates late in the series.
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