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Anton Løvenberg, Study of a Sculptural Male Torso, ca. 1840–1850. Gift of Frederick Lovenberg.

Introduction

Drawing Closer

Four Hundred Years of Drawing from the RISD Museum
March 12 - September 4, 2022

Drawing Closer invites us to consider how and why drawings were created, paying special attention to the materials they were made of and to the functions they served both in the artist’s studio and in the world outside it. Seven distinct but interrelated sections explore media and techniques such as pen, chalk, ink wash, and watercolor, as well as some of the traditional purposes of drawing, including observation, invention, preparation, and amusement.

This exhibition brings together 67 works from the RISD Museum’s remarkable collection of European drawings produced between the 1500s and the 1800s—some recently acquired, others never before exhibited. Drawing Closer is conceived as a guide to looking at these works from the perspectives of their makers while highlighting the breadth, depth, and variety of a living collection that is used today to teach and inspire students and visitors.

Jamie Gabbarelli Prince Trust Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, Art Institute of Chicago Former Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, RISD Museum

Drawing Closer is made possible by a lead grant from the Getty Foundation. RISD Museum is supported by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and with the generous partnership of the Rhode Island School of Design, its Board of Trustees, and Museum Governors.

For a complete checklist, email curatorial@risd.edu.  

Read the digital publication here. 

 

Events

Talks and Conversations

Exhibition Preview: Drawing Closer

Museum Galleries
March 11, 2022 / 1-7 pm
Talks and Conversations

Faculty Exhibition Preview: Drawing Closer

Museum Galleries
March 11, 2022 / 12-1 pm
Talks and Conversations

Drawing Closer Exhibition Tour

Museum Galleries
March 22, 2022 / 11 am-12 pm
Open Studio

Open Studio: Drawing Closer

Museum Galleries
April 9, 2022 / 2-4 pm
Open Studio

Open Studios: Drawing Closer & Patterns

Museum Galleries & Common Room
April 24, 2022 / 2-4 pm
Workshops and studios Hands-on Art

Museum Sketching Session

Museum Galleries
Saturday, June 4 / 1-4 pm

More Events

Selected Objects

George Moutard Woodward

Study for Symptoms of Matrimony, ca. 1796

Willem van Mieris

Galatea and Cupid, 1696 - 1702

George Romney

Study for the Portrait of Frances Woodley (Mrs. Henry Bankes), ca. 1780

Pier Leone Ghezzi

Le Chevalier de La Motte, ca. 1725 - 1730

Bartolomeo Pinelli

Pinelli alla Trattoria (Pinelli at the Restaurant), 1824

Hendrik de Clerck

David and Abigail, ca. 1590-1600

Henry Fuseli

Head of a Lady, ca. 1810-1815

Jane Ogden

Bluebells and Primroses with a Bird’s Nest, 1866

Ottavio Leoni

Portrait of the Signora Licinia Leni, Marchesa Martinenghi, 1626

Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Interior of a Tavern in Pompeii, ca. 1775

John Ruskin

Study of Juniper, 1863

Jean-Baptiste Greuze

The Opening of the Will, ca. 1760 - 1780

Thomas Groves

Aqueduct, Nîmes, 1787

Anton Løvenberg

Study after a Plaster Cast of a Male Torso, ca.1840

Cornelis Saftleven

A Young Man Seated on Ground, 1642

Thomas Gainsborough

Wooded Landscape with Cottages, Figures, and Cows, ca. 1760 - 1780

Abraham Jansz. van Diepenbeeck

Study for the Death of Hercules, 1630s

David Cox the Elder

The Hayfield, 1833

Gustave Moreau

Hésiode (Hesiod), early 1880s

Franz Xaver Habermann

Design for an Interior Elevation, ca. 1746 - 1768

Ubaldo Gandolfi, or his workshop

Deposition, 1760 - 1780

Jules Pierre Michel Diéterle

Stage Design for La Fille du Danube, ca. 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Glencoe, 1831-1834

Carlo Maratti

Double-Sided Sheet with Studies of Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides, ca. 1692

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

Country Dance, ca. 1797

James Gillray

Study for An Old English Gentleman Pester’d by Servants Wanting Places, ca. 1809

Hugh William "Grecian" Williams

Athens Toward the Southwest, ca.1817-1826

Luca Cambiaso

Descent from the Cross, ca. 1572 - 1575

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier

Page from a Sketchbook: View of a Town (Antibes?), ca. 1835 - 1890

Eugène Delacroix

Studies after The Death of the Virgin, ca. 1820 - 1860

Edme Bouchardon

Portrait of the Painter Giuseppe Amedeo Aliberti, 1732

Tony Johannot

Caricature of Mélanie Waldor, ca. 1830 - 1840

John Martin

A Rocky Pool, ca. 1824 - 1854

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

Lady Dressing, ca. 1780-1790

William Blake

St. Paul Preaching at Athens, 1803

Wilhelm von Kobell

Man on Horseback with Another Saddled Horse Beside Him, ca. 1823

Maerten van Heemskerck

Study for The Triumph of David, 1559

Circle of Hieronymus Bosch

Model Sheet with Monsters, ca. 1510

Antonio Gionima

Madonna and Child with Saint Joseph in the Carpenter Shop, 1731

John Hamilton Mortimer

Three Heads, ca. 1775

J. J. Grandville (Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard)

Study for “Ne la trouvez-vous pas jolie?” (“Don’t you find her pretty?”),, 1842

Pieter Withoos

Study of Four Butterflies and a Bumblebee, ca. 1680

Louis Rolland Trinquesse

Seated Woman, 1774

Giovanni Battista Bertani

Double-Sided Sheet: Study for Hercules Victorious over the Hydra (recto); Study of Hercules, a Roman Soldier’s Head, and Ornament (verso), 1557 - 1558

George Chinnery

Sunset on the Ganges, ca. 1808 - 1825

Thomas Rowlandson

A Meeting of Cognoscenti (After Dinner), ca. 1790-1800

Donato Creti

Studies for Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, ca. 1720 - 1749

Anthony van Dyck

Study for Malchus, ca. 1618-1620

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Study after Alessandro Vittoria's Bust of Giulio Contarini, ca. 1743

Louis de Boullogne the Younger

Two Male Nudes, 1710

Jean-François Millet

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (?), ca. 1864-1865

Jean-Louis-André-Théodore Géricault

The Organ Grinder, ca. 1820

Louis-Simon Boizot

Allegorical Figure, ca. 1794

Pieter Jansz. Pourbus

Study for The Last Judgment, ca. 1550 - 1551

Rodolphe Bresdin

Battle Scene in a Mountain Pass, ca. 1864 - 1865

Giuseppe Cesari, called Cavaliere d’Arpino

Head of a Satyr, 1600 - 1625

Marco Tullio Montagna

Scenes from the Life of Saint Joseph, ca. 1631

Attributed to Jean-Jacques Karpff, called Casimir

L’amour et l’amitié (Love and Friendship; design for printed toile fabric), ca. 1816

Gérard de Lairesse

Portrait of a Woman, Probably Marie Salme, the Artist’s Wife, ca. 1664

Edward Burne-Jones

The Hours, 1865

Willem Robart

Trompe l’Oeil with Printed Matter, 1770s

François Boucher

Hecuba Presents a Garment as a Gift to Athena, 1735-1750

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino

A Young Man with an Owl on a Stick, ca. 1630s

François-Marius Granet

A Friar in the Doorway of a Convent, ca. 1802 - 1824

Elisabetta Sirani

Study for Allegory of Justice, Charity, and Prudence, ca. 1664

Jan van Goyen

A Village Street with Peasants, 1653

More objects +

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