Adolph Paul Oppé, known as Paul Oppé (1878–1957), was the deputy director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1910–13), and a founder member of the Walpole Society. He began acquiring British watercolours in 1904 and by his death his collection comprised three thousand drawings, oil sketches and prints ranging from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Most of Oppé’s distinguished collection, including eight works by or attributed to Girtin, is now at Tate Britain, which, following the death of his son, Denys Oppé, acquired it in 1996 by purchase. Oppé’s numerous publications include much information on Girtin’s works, and further details of his opinions can be found in the extensive correspondence he maintained with Thomas Girtin (1874–1960), which is now housed in the Girtin Archive (held at the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum) and the Oppé Archive (held at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art also in London).