Buildings on a River

A riverside scene showing a cottage, figures and a boat. This was the first work by Cotman to enter the Scottish National collections. Cotman exhibited for the last time at the Royal Academy in 1806 and returned to Norwich that winter where he set up a ‘School for Drawing and Design’. During this time he made his first experiments in oil painting rather than his more usual medium of watercolour. In 1810 he was elected vice-president of the Norwich Society of Artists and also exhibited in London at the Associated Artists in Water-Colours and at the British Institution. By this time a number of his exhibited works were almost certainly in oils.