The Reverend James Bulwer

James Bulwer (1794-1879) was a curate, amateur artist, and antiquarian from Norfolk. He is shown here holding a sketchbook and watercolour brush. Between 1845 and 1858, Bulwer commissioned from Sandys some 220 watercoloured drawings of antiquarian objects for a topographical project known as the "Norfolk Collection." The medieval door behind Bulwer was adapted from the "Prior's Door" at Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire. The architectural setting and references to nature suggest the Pre-Raphaelite influence of John Ruskin. In 1834, the artist John Sell Cotman characterized Bulwer as "quiet, easy and dignified, like an apostle." Frame: press-moulded composition over wooden carcass, gilded. Britain, made for the work