Private Treasures Four Centuries Of European Master Drawings

Private Treasures: Four Centuries of European Master Drawings, by Andrew Robinson and Margaret Morgan Grasselli. From exhibition at National Gallery of Art and The Morgan Museum January 18 through April 8, 2007. Private Treasures provided the public the rare opportunity to view works from the 16th through the 20th c drawn entirely from an important private collection. The exhibition featured many drawings from the Italian school, such as Agnolo Bronzino's exceptional Study of the Dead Christ. Further highlights included a double-sided sheet of studies by Correggio for his decoration of the cupola of S. Giovanni Evangelista in Parma as well as works from the Roman High Baroque by Pietro da Cortona and Bernini. Also 18th c Venetian artists Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo. French drawings from the 17th through 19th centuries were also well represented. Antoine Watteau's spectacular drawing of a Man Playing a Guitar, illustrative of an artist's rapid and immediate notations, is shown alongside Vincent's Drawing Lesson, which is replete with amorous undertones and constitutes a highly finished work. A landscape by the 17th c master of pastoral scenes, Claude Lorrain, was one of several drawings by French artists active in Rome. The 18th c was represented by artists such as Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Hubert Robert and the 19th century by Odilon Redon and Edgar Degas. Among works by British artists, there are a freely drawn landscape by Thomas Gainsborough and John Constable's oil sketch of the seashore at Brighton. A luminous view of an Amsterdam street by the 18th c artist Jacob Cats is one of several works from the Dutch school. The German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich was represented by a moonlit landscape. The selection concluded with works by Adolf von Menzel and powerful self-portraits by Käthe Kollwitz and Lovis Corinth. NPT Books, a division of Trent Antiques, has a large collection of used and out of print books on art, architecture, decoration and antiques with a focus on 1st editions, signed and limited editions.