The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

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Moss and Wild Strawberry John Ruskin

  • Curator’s description:

    Description

    The drawing shows moss and wild strawberry plants in a cleft in a rock; grass, and other broad-leafed plants, are sketched in at the top, towards the right.

    Although Cook and Wedderburn dated the drawing to 'about 1880' - presumably associating it with the many botanical studies made by Ruskin at Brantwood as he was working on "Proserpina" (1881) - Taylor suggets that, stylistically, it is closer to earlier drawings such as Educational Series no. 11, also of wild strawberry and dated June 1873. He associates it with a diary entry for 6 June 1873, 'I've been two days drawing wild strawberry'.

    The drawing was first catalogued in the Oxford collection in 1906, when Cook and Wedderburn included it as no. 90 in the Reference Series - one of a set of frames (nos 84-100) which Ruskin had never listed in his own catalogues of the collection.

  • Details

    Artist/maker
    John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
    Object type
    drawing
    Material and technique
    graphite and traces of bodycolour on grey-blue paper
    Dimensions
    541 x 376 mm
    Provenance

    Presumably presented by John Ruskin to the Ruskin Drawing School (University of Oxford); first recorded in the Ruskin Drawing School in 1906; transferred from the Ruskin Drawing School to the Ashmolean Museum c.1949

    No. of items
    1
    Accession no.
    WA.RS.REF.090
  • Subject terms allocated by curators:

    Subjects

  • References in which this object is cited include:

    References

    Taylor, Gerald, ‘John Ruskin: A Catalogue of Drawings by John Ruskin in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, 7 fascicles, 1998, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, no. 275

    Ruskin, John, The Diaries of John Ruskin, ed. Joan Evans and John Howard Whitehouse, 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956-1959), pl. 59, f.p. 856

    Penny, Nicholas, Ruskin's Drawings, Ashmolean - Christie's Handbooks (London: Phaidon, 1988), no. 22

    Ruskin, John, ‘The Works of John Ruskin’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), XXI pl. XXVIII fp 34

    Ruskin, John, ‘The Ruskin Art Collection at Oxford: Catalogues, Notes and Instructions’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), 21, cat. Reference no. 90

Location

    • Western Art Print Room

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