{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O118396"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O118396/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EJ4655/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EJ4655/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2010EJ4655","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O118396/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O118396","accessionNumber":"E.2115-1949","objectType":"Watercolour","titles":[{"title":"Thatching at Cavendish","type":"assigned by artist"},{"title":"Recording Britain","type":"named collection"}],"summaryDescription":"These cottages, clustered around a fourteenth-century church, are in a dilapidated state, with chimneys leaning, patches of plaster fallen away, and the thatch decayed.  In fact, Cowern noted that they had recently been saved from demolition.  Here, he depicts a thatcher repairing the roofs with the traditional materials used in East Anglia: dark reeds from the fens and golden straw from the local grain harvest.\r\n\r\nMarking the drawing to indicate the mount line, Cowern chose to exclude the telegraph pole, a modern intrusion into the timeless picturesque.  In so doing, he falsified his subject, suggesting an isolation and independence from progress that did not actually exist.  His decision to exclude an anachronistic structure did, however, presage the 'improvement' of picturesque villages by National Park authorities.  Aesthetic values, imposed from outside, predominate over practicalities, indicating the extent to which tourism was beginning to replace the traditional rural economy.","physicalDescription":"A watercolour drawing of three thatched cottages, in a state of disrepair, clustered at the foot of a fourteenth-century church.  A ladder leans against the side of the cottage at centre, and a thatcher is at work on its roof.  A telegraph pole, leaning slightly, stands at left.  The drawing is heavily annotated and a mount line is drawn to the right of the telegraph pole.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Cowern, Raymond Teague","id":"A2092"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25136"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"pen and ink and watercolour","id":"x32505"}],"techniques":[{"text":"watercolour drawing","id":"x37878"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Pen and ink and watercolour","categories":[{"text":"Recording Britain Collection","id":"THES48901"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2010EJ4655"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLH","id":"THES49654"},"free":"","case":"RB","shelf":"49","box":"A"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"watercolour","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Cavendish","id":"x39250"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"May 1940","earliest":"1940-05-01","latest":"1940-05-31"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by the Pilgrim Trust","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"9.3125","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"8","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'May- 1940. R. T. C. Tatching at Cavendish. Cottages recently saved from demolition'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed by the artist, bottom edge."},{"content":"'straw'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed by the artist on the roof of the lefthand cottage"},{"content":"'straw thatching'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed by the artist to the left of the roof of the centre cottage"},{"content":"'reed thatch'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed by the artist on the roof of the righthand cottage"}],"objectHistory":"Cowern included the telegraph pole at left, and then apparently changed his mind: he marked a mount line to the right of it, excluding the pole and with it the intrusion of modern life into the timeless picturesque of the cottages and church.  As his inscription notes, the cottages had recently been saved from demolition, and the picture shows them in a dilapidated state, with patches of plaster fallen away and the thatched roofs decayed.  \nThis work is from the 'Recording Britain' collection of topographical watercolours and drawings made in the early 1940s during the Second World War. In 1940 the Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime, part of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, launched a scheme to employ artists to record the home front in Britain, funded by a grant from the Pilgrim Trust. It ran until 1943 and some of the country's finest watercolour painters, such as John Piper, Sir William Russell Flint and Rowland Hilder, were commissioned to make paintings and drawings of buildings, scenes, and places which captured a sense of national identity. Their subjects were typically English: market towns and villages, churches and country estates, rural landscapes and industries, rivers and wild places, monuments and ruins. Northern Ireland was not covered, only four Welsh counties were included, and a separate scheme ran in Scotland.\r\n\r\nThe scheme was known as 'Recording the changing face of Britain' and was established by Sir Kenneth Clark, then the director of the National Gallery. It ran alongside the official War Artists' Scheme, which he also initiated. Clark was inspired by several motives: at the outbreak of war in 1939, there was a concern to document the British landscape in the face of the imminent threat of bomb damage, invasion, and loss caused by the operations of war. This was allied to an anxiety about changes to the landscape already underway, such as the rapid growth of cities, road building and housing developments, the decline of rural ways of life and industries, and new agricultural practices, which together contributed to the idea of a 'vanishing Britain'. Clark also wanted to help artists, and the traditional forms of British art such as watercolour painting, to survive during the uncertain conditions of wartime. He in turn was inspired by America's Federal Arts Project which was designed to give artists employment during the Great Depression of the 1930s.\r\n\r\nOver 1500 works were eventually produced by 97 artists, of whom 63 were specially commissioned. At the time the collection had a propaganda role, intended to boost national morale by celebrating Britain's landscapes and heritage. Three exhibitions were held during the war at the National Gallery, and pictures from the collection were sent on touring exhibitions and to galleries all around the country. After the war, the whole collection was given to the V&A by the Pilgrim Trust in 1949, and it was documented in a four volume catalogue published between 1946 and 1949. For many years the majority of the collection was on loan to councils and record offices in each county, until recalled by the V&A around 1990. The pictures now form a memorial to the war effort, and a unique record of their time.\n\nHistorical significance: Cowern's decision to exclude the telegraph pole falsified the subject, suggesting that progress had passed Cavendish by.  This presaged the 'improvement' of picturesque villages, such as Otterton in Devon and the National Trust village of Lacock in Wiltshire, by national park authorities to remove anachronistic structures.  Aesthetic values, imposed from outside, predominate over practicalities, indicating the extent to which tourism replaced the traditional rural economy.","historicalContext":"The thatch is being applied in two layers: an underlayer of reeds and an overlayer of golden straw.  Both materials were readily available in East Anglia -- straw from the grain harvests and reeds from the fens.  These thatched roofs are typical of the region, being steep with open gables, quite different from the low all-encircling kind found in the West Country.","briefDescription":"Raymond Cowern: Thatching at Cavendish (Recording Britain, Suffolk), 1940.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Mellor, D., G. Saunders, P. Wright, <u>Recording Britain: A Pictorial Domesday of Pre-War Britain</u>. 1990. pp. 142-43."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"<u>Catalogue of Drawings in the ‘Recording Britain’ Collection given by the Pilgrim Trust to the Victoria and Albert Museum</u> published by the Victoria and Albert Museum, Prints, Drawings and Paintings Department, 1951."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Palmer, Arnold, ed. <u>Recording Britain</u>. London: Oxford University Press, 1946-49.  Vol 2: Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, Northhamptonshire and Rutlandshire, Norfolk, Yorkshire.  Introduction to Suffolk, p.49."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[{"text":"Cavendish","id":"x39250"},{"text":"Suffolk","id":"x29440"}],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[{"text":"Second World War","id":"V72"}],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"cottages","id":"AAT5500"},{"text":"thatching","id":"AAT53687"},{"text":"topographical views","id":"AAT15566"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["E.2115-1949"],"accessionNumberNum":"2115","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":1949,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-16","recordCreationDate":"2005-11-10","availableToBook":false}}