|
Date: |
|
Description: | The Department of Western Art includes European (including Russian) paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, applied and decorative arts and musical instruments from the middle Ages to the present. The European Ã-old masterà drawings are founded on the Douce bequest of 1834, transferred from the Bodleian Library in 1863, and the purchase by public subscription in 1842 of the near-incomparable drawings by Michelangelo and Raphael collected by Sir Thomas Lawrence and one of the finest collections in the world and second only to the British Museum. Drawings of all the main European schools are represented especially English drawings and watercolours including 77 sheets by J.M.W. Turner, over 100 by Burne-Jones and 150 drawings by John Ruskin, Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford in the 1870s and 1880s, and Max Beerbohm, also strong groups of works by Rowlandson, Girtin, Cozens, Cotman, Sandby and Cox, the drawings by Samuel Palmer are second to none In 1855 the collector Chambers Hall gifted a series of prints and drawings by Claude, the Ostade family and Rembrandt, as well as 5 sheets of drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci. The Douce Bequest also included drawings and prints by Dürer and other German, French and Netherlandish masters. In 1838 Mrs Sutherland presented folio editions of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion and Burnet's History of His Own Time with over 19,000 portraits and topographical views illustrating the text and Revd F.W. Hope presented a vast collection of topographical prints and portraits of British and foreign sitters in 1850; a collection of Guercino drawings belonging to Sir Denis Mahon was donated in 1985. The entire collection of French drawings is on-line shortly to be followed by the Russian, German, French Ornamental and Netherlandish collections.
The paintings, one of the principal collections in England outside of the National Museums, are rich in Renaissance Italy, 17th century Flemish and Dutch art including the Daisy Linda Ward Collection of flower paintings, English 18th and 19th century, the Pre-Raphaelites in particular from the Combe Bequest of 1894 and the work of Camille Pissarro and his family based on the Pissarro family gift of 1950.
Early 20th Century European has 67 caricatures by Sir Max Beerbohm, drawings by Sickert and the Camden Town School and the Lewin Gift of John Piper preparatory material, figurative drawing, and British wood engraving including archival collections of Gertrude Hermes, George Mackley, Robin Tanner, Leon Underwood and a deposit of the Diploma Collection of the Royal Society of Painter- Printmakers. Also the most comprehensive collection in Britain of 19th and early 20th century Russian paintings and drawings, given by Mikhail Braikevitch in 1949, including ballet designs by Bakst, Benois and Korovin. There is a group of drawings by Leonid Pasternak, presented by his daughters in 1958 and the Talbot Collection contains a remarkable range of Russian topographical material, especially prints of St Petersburg. Dr Grete Ring's bequest forms the nucleus of a collection of 19th century German drawings, hardly equalled outside Germany, and including works by Caspar David Friedrich and Edgar Degas.
The European sculpture is wide ranging and is the most important collection in Britain outside of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The collections of Renaissance bronzes, maiolica, and rings formed by C.D.E. Fortnum (1820-1899) are of world importance in their fields and the collection of English domestic silver of the 17th and 18th centuries based on the Farrer Bequest of 1846 and including the Carter and Conway collections, rivals the national collection at the V & A .The Marshall Collection of Worcester porcelain is the most comprehensive collection of early pieces anywhere. Also worthy of mention are the Warren Collection of English delftware and the Hill Collection of stringed instruments, portrait miniatures, seventeenth-century textiles, 16th Ã-18th century watches and European porcelain. The Hill Collection of stringed instruments is one of the most impressive in the world and in the field of the violin it is unsurpassed. Frequently consulted by instrument makers from around the world as it contains the Messrs W.E. Hill & Sons commissioned series of working drawings by John Pringle and Stephen Barber to meet the needs of the craftsman instrument-maker. There are measured drawings and personal observations on the present condition, construction and original workmanship of individual instruments.
The collections on line are the general, Northern European Drawings, Italian Drawings, Russian Drawings, British Drawings, Pissarro Archive, Sutherland Collection and British Wood Engravings.
In total the Department holds over 150,000 objects of Fine Art, 50 musical instruments, 6,000 decorative and applied art objects, c.100 items of Costume and textile including 5 tapestries, 10 items of Arms and Armour, c.10,000 archival items including the Pizarro and Fortnum archives and 100 archaeology objects and 200 photographs. | Source: | Cornucopia - Discovering UK Collections | Address: | Beaumont Street
Oxford Oxfordshire,
OX1 2PH | FAX: | 01865 278018 | Telephone: | 01865 278000 | Identifier: | oai:www.cornucopia.org.uk:4172 | Go to resource |
|
|