Release Date: April 16, 2007

Exhibition of Old Master and Modern Drawings from a Private Collection Covers 400 Years of European Art: On View May 6 – September 16, 2007

François-André Vincent, The Drawing Lesson (detail), 1777
brush and brown wash over graphite on cream paper, laid down, with a framing line in dark brown ink
Anonymous Partial and Promised Gift

Washington, DC – Private Treasures: Four Centuries of European Master Drawings offers a selection of works from one of America’s most significant private collections of master drawings. The exhibition, on view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from May 6 through September 16, features 100 of the finest drawings from the collection, and represents 85 artists of the Italian, French, Dutch, Flemish, German, Swiss, British, and Swedish schools from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

The exhibition was jointly organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, where it was on view from January 18 through April 8, 2007.

"The collection we celebrate here reflects the direct communication of the artist through a wide range of drawings spanning four centuries and eight national schools," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "They range from the quickest personal notations to the most elaborate and finished works of art and are a reflection of the collector’s enormous taste and great passion."

The Exhibition

The exhibition will be presented chronologically by century, with various schools combined. About half of the exhibited drawings are by Italian artists, including Fra Bartolommeo’s delicate The Virgin and Child Surrounded by Saints and Angels (c. 1500); a deeply moving study of The Dead Christ by Agnolo Bronzino (1529/1535), and three studies in colored chalks by Federico Barocci. Two 17th-century Italian highlights are a rich red chalk figure study by Mattia Preti titled Study for the Figure of Adrian Fortescue (1662/1666) and Two Studies of St. Cecilia Playing the Organ by Pier Francesco Mola (1648). Eighteenth-century highlights include The Annunciation (1735/1740) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo; Marta Gandolfi (1778), a tender portrait of Gaetano Gandolfi’s daughter; and a Lagoon Capriccio with a Fortified Tower (1780s) by Francesco Guardi.

About one-quarter of the show will consist of French drawings, with artists ranging from Etienne Delaune and Claude Lorrain to Edgar Degas and Odilon Redon. Eighteenth-century highlights include The Drawing Lesson (1777) and The Gardens of the Villa Negroni (1773), two of the greatest drawings by François-André Vincent; A Man Playing a Guitar (1717/1718), a brilliant trois-crayons (three chalks) work by Antoine Watteau; and three outstanding works by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Little Park (1765), Two Cypresses in an Italian Garden (1774), and The Bread Box (1777). Nineteenth-century works include Cliffs at Fécamp (1835/1839), a vibrant watercolor by Eugène Delacroix, and Madeleine Ingres with the Artist (1830), a double portrait of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and his wife.

Among those works representing Dutch and Flemish art are a wonderfully calligraphic sketch by Ferdinand Bol and The Wijde Kapelsteeg in Amsterdam with the Burgerweeshuis in the Distance (1793), a beautifully detailed view of a street in Amsterdam by Jacob Cats.

The British drawings section will begin with a rare work by the l7th-century artist Francis Place, Ruins of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral (1670/1672), and will feature landscapes, including Wooded Landscape with a Stream (mid-1780s) by Thomas Gainsborough and Figures Entering an Extensive Valley (1820) by John Martin.

Among work by German artists rounding out the selection will be a small but magical 19th-century landscape by Caspar David Friedrich, Moonlit Landscape with Lovers and a Church (1797/1798); a mesmerizing study of a woman by Wilhelm Leibl, Young Peasant Woman (1889); and two silvery graphite drawings by Adolf Menzel, Seated Man Leaning Forward (1887) and A Couple Looking at a Painting (1893). German 20th-century drawings will include powerful portrait studies by Käthe Kollwitz and Lovis Corinth.

Curators and Related Activities

The exhibition curators are Margaret Morgan Grasselli and Andrew Robison at the National Gallery and Rhoda Eitel-Porter and Jennifer Tonkovich at the Morgan Library & Museum.

The exhibition catalogue, edited and designed by the National Gallery of Art, is fully illustrated and jointly written by National Gallery and Morgan Library & Museum curators. Published by Lund Humphries, the 248-page book features 153 color and 10 black-and-white illustrations, and provides an opportunity for collectors, scholars, and general readers to enjoy major works that are seldom reproduced. The catalogue contains new scholarship on each drawing, and the sumptuous layout shows all the works in full color.

Gallery Talks in the exhibition are held at 1 p.m. on May 21, 23, 27; June 4, 8, 22; July 18, 19, 20; and August 14, 15, and 16. Gallery talks are also available on May 26 and June 12 at 12 noon. These meet in the West Building Rotunda.

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

For additional press information please call or send inquiries to:

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phone: (202) 842-6353 e-mail: pressinfo@nga.gov

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