Doorway, Heckingham Church

John Sell Cotman

ca. 1818 · Graphite and watercolor · Drawings and Prints

Cotman drew the south doorway at St. Gregory’s, a twelfth-century church at Heckingham, in Norfolk, while living in Great Yarmouth. By 1818 he had made two visits to Normandy to study the region’s medieval architecture. These encounters encouraged his attention to the fine Norman stonework closer to home, in this case on a small building ten miles southeast of Norwich. He used watercolor over graphite to describe four orders of shafts with cushion capitals; arches decorated with zigzags, reels, and bobbins and wheels. The open door reveals a square-bowled Norman baptismal font within, supported by squat columns and topped with a wooden cover. A patch of blue sky can be glimpsed through a diamond-paned, early Gothic lancet window.

Artist

John Sell Cotman

Date

ca. 1818

Medium

Graphite and watercolor

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1953