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Italian Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection: 1525–1835

May 8 – November 27, 2011
West Building, Ground Floor, Outer Tier Galleries G23, G24, G25

Canaletto, The "Giovedì Grasso" Festival before the Ducal Palace in Venice, 1763/1766, pen and brown ink with gray wash over graphite and red chalk, heightened with white gouache, on cream laid paper, Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, Paul Mellon Fund, 2007.111.55

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: 65 Italian drawings from the late Renaissance to the 19th century were shown in this exhibition drawn from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection at the National Gallery of Art. Included were works by Giulio Romano, Domenico Tintoretto, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Canaletto, among others. German drawings from the Ratjen Collection had been shown in an exhibition in the same galleries the previous year. The Ratjen Collection of 185 German and Italian drawings had been acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 2007.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art. Margaret Morgan Grasselli, curator and head of the department of old master drawings, was curator.

Sponsor: The exhibition was made possible through the support of the STIFTUNG RATJEN, Liechtenstein.

Catalog: Italian Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, 1525-1835, by Hugo Chapman et al. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2011.