ITALIAN DRAWINGS PROJECT

Ciro Ferri, The Virgin and Child adored, brush drawing in brown ink, heightened with body colour, over black chalk on buff paper

ITALIAN DRAWINGS PROJECT

A research project focusing on the Museum’s major collection of Italian drawings and its subsequent online catalogue

The Ashmolean's world-famous Italian drawings collection was the subject of this ambitious project. The resulting catalogue includes 2,345 Italian drawings from the 1400s to the 1900s, excluding works by Michelangelo and Raphael, and presents new scholarship, building on earlier publications by Karl Parker (1956) and Hugh Macandrew (1980).

Many drawings were not previously catalogued, or were listed only briefly in those works. New identifications have now been made, as well as updates to earlier entries, based on advances in scholarship. References to subsequent publications are selective but aim to be helpful.

The project seeks to provide richer, more accessible content for a global audience, including high-resolution images, detailed information on media and technique based on investigations by the Ashmolean's Paper Conservators, and updated insights into history, provenance, authorship, and dating.

Each drawing text aims to throw light on the works, and reveals the process of identifying the artist or the purpose of the drawing. We document much previous scholarship, and the opinions of international specialists sought in the preparation of this resource. We’ve aimed to make the research process as transparent as possible, so users will understand how we came to certain conclusions, and how perceptions and knowledge may have changed over the years.

You can view the digital records for these sheets, with accompanying research information, shortly when the Online Catalogue is made available on Collections Online.

This online resource is underpinned by our mission as a university museum to make information about our collections available to a wide public in a way that is accessible and trustworthy.

A horse and rider falling (detail), Titian

Black chalk with charcoal and white bodycolour, squared in red chalk, on blue laid paper, 1537. Presented by Mrs Josiah Gilbert, 1895. WA1895.6

Two women seated (detail), Guercino

Red chalk and wash on laid paper, c. 1618-1621. Purchased in 1954. WA1954.8

Interior of a witch's cave with devils and other monsters (detail), Anonymous North Italian artist

Pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk on laid paper, 18th century. Bequeathed by Francis Douce, 1834. WA1863.872

Design for the tomb of Pope Clement XI Albani with allegories of Strength and Religion (detail), Pietro Bracci

Brown and green washes over black chalk and pen with ink, with white heightening on laid paper, 1743. Purchased in 2003. WA2003.132

Studies of costume (detail), studio of Pisanello

Pen and brown ink with watercolours on parchment, c. 1430-1439. Bequeathed by Francis Douce, 1834. WA1863.623

Design with the coat of arms of the Medici (detail), Francesco Salviati

Pen and brown wash on laid paper, cut to a roundel and inlaid on an album page with an elaborate gilt framing element typical of the collection of John Talman (1677 – 1726). Transferred from the Bodleian Library in 1942. WA1942.54.121

Funding for this project came from a generous grant by The Getty Foundation (The Paper Project), supplemented by further grants from the Tavolozza Foundation and the Wolfgang Ratjen Foundation.

The research grant from the Getty Foundation involved the curatorial training of two post-doctoral Ashmolean-Getty Research Fellows, Dr Ian Hick and Dr Rachel Boyd, who worked on every aspect of the project and who each wrote catalogue texts. A separately-funded drawings specialist, Dr Angelamaria Aceto, was closely involved in the project, in particular researching the architectural and ornament drawings from the collection of the architects William and John Talman. The initials IH, RB and AA appear with the entries that each individual has written. The other entries were written by Prof Catherine Whistler (CW).

Valuable assistance in identifying watermarks was given by Maria Giovanna Donà over three months in 2023 during the period of her doctoral research.

A list of collaborators is noted on the Italian Drawings Research Project Acknowledgements PDF linked below.

ITALIAN DRAWINGS RESEARCH COLLABORATORS PDF

The Ashmolean is indebted to The Getty Foundation for funding a planned four-year project focusing on the Museum’s major collection of Italian drawings. This was part of a new initiative (The Paper Project) to strengthen curatorial practice in the field of graphic arts.

The Ashmolean’s magnificent Western Art collections contain around 25,000 drawings and over 250,000 prints by artists from the 15th century to the present day, with the Italian drawings collection renowned for its quality and range.

The Getty Foundation grant supported curatorial training in drawings scholarship and connoisseurship under the direction of Catherine Whistler, funding two 18-month Research Fellowships for early career art historians. The grant supported collaborative research, including travel, consultation with distinguished drawings specialists nationally and internationally, and contributions by the Ashmolean's Paper Conservators through non-invasive investigations. The research fed into the writing of a scholarly catalogue of the main collection of Italian drawings, in the form of an online resource.

The project concerned over 2,300 drawings, including works by artists such as Filippino Lippi, Parmigianino, Annibale Carracci, Federico Barocci, Guercino, Carlo Maratti, Canaletto, and Giambattista Piranesi as well as many as yet unidentified artists. The Michelangelo and Raphael collections are the subject of separate research and publications. A Researcher, supported by the Tavolozza Foundation and the Wolfgang Ratjen Foundation, brought additional expertise and essential research support to the project as a whole.

Research aims

To interrogate and evaluate the material and visual evidence presented by Italian drawings from the 15th to the 20th centuries so as to produce an authoritative collections catalogue.
To identify and interpret drawings as material objects and visual images created for particular purposes, so as to advance our understanding of Italian drawings using museum-based research methods.
To promote the significance of museum-based curatorial research including connoisseurship, non-invasive technical investigations, studies of provenance and studies in the history of collecting.

Project funders

The Getty Foundation's The Paper Project. Prints and Drawings Curatorship in the 21st Century

Tavolozza Foundation

The Wolfgang Ratjen Foundation

Project dates

The Getty Foundation grant was awarded in 2018. The research project began in February 2019 and was completed in December 2025. The online catalogue will be available in Jun 2026.