David Cox 1783-1859

The present watercolour can be dated to the mid 1830's and depicts one of the most important and successful subjects in the artist's oeuvre, travellers crossing Lancaster Sands.  It was a scene which fascinated the artist because of the relationship of the threatening weather to the sturdy country folk making their way across the vast sands to market, hurrying to be clear of the notoriously dangerous incoming tide.  In the foreground on secure high ground, two men on horseback, probably the guides known locally as `carters' who with hunting horns would signal the safe route when the tide was coming in and when the fog had not cleared to those on foot, converse with the women who show them their baskets with cockles.  Further away on the sands, drovers with cattle and cockle gatherers hundreds of yards beyond, make their way to the safe ground above the tide as the sun begins to set.

The tension engendered by the light about to go and the tide shortly to come in while many folk are still out on the sands, the fragile relationship between Man and Nature, may have struck Cox when he saw the Picturesque Views in England and Wales engraving of Turner's Lancaster Sands (British Museum) which he drew in the mid 1820's, probably a few years before Cox himself witnessed the view.  He saw the vast expanse of land which stretches out across the head of Morcambe Bay during a visit to Lancaster and Ulverston in July 1834.  He returned a year later and again in 1840.  Between 1835 and 1847 he produced many paintings and drawings depicting travellers making the treacherous journey back and forth the expansive coastal stretch.  He often changed his viewpoint in his pictures, but here, in an unusually large watercolour, it is taken from Lancaster shore, looking west towards Ulverston and the mountains of Cumberland.  

A watercolour of Crossing Lancaster Sands, measuring 14 1/2 by 20 in. was sold in these Rooms, 10th April 1997, lot 100 for £96,000