17th Century Italian Drawings [antikvár]

The Budapest Museum of Fone Arts opened its gates to the public in 1906. The Department of Prints and Drawings is the largest of the museum in numerical terms, and the collection of old master drawings represents almost all the major artists and scholls of European art, the Italian school being one of the most comprehensive and most valuable of all. The proportion of the different regional schools reflects the art historical significance of the different regions in Italy of the time, and also reflects the taste of former collectors. The Emilian school prevails with more than half of the material, second in number is the Roman school. The Tuscan, mainly Florentine gropu is the third, while Lombard, Neapolitan, Genoese and Venetian schools are less well represented numerically. The majority of the 17 century Italian drawings - more, than 200 pieces, which means almost two thirds of this group - derives from the Esterházy collection. The present volume contains introductory essays on the history of the collection, on research-work in connection with it, and entries for 358 drawings, organized alphabetically by artists, and accompanied by c. 510 illustrations, a hundred of them in colour.