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The Duomo of San Martino, Lucca John Ruskin
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Curator’s description:
Description
The drawing shows the left section of the west front of the Duomo of San Martino, Lucca. Seen obliquely from the right, the northernmost portal (with decoration carved by Nicola Pisano) can be seen, and two of the three storeys of arcades which decorate the facade above the ground floor. Unusually for Ruskin, a woman is shown sitting on the steps in front of the church.
Ruskin was in Lucca from late July to late August 1874, and Taylor notes that he was drawing the Duomo for three days from 28 or 29 July, and on 3, 5 and 17 August. According to Cook and Wedderburn, 'Ruskin considered it one of his best drawings' (XXI.34 n. 4).
Ruskin exhibited the drawing in his 1878 Turner exhibition, where he noted that it was at Oxford. Although Cook and Wedderburn state that the drawing was no longer at Oxford in their edition of the Turner catalogue (XIII.527 n. 4), they were the first to actually catalogue it in the Oxford collection, in 1906, listing it as no. 85 in the Reference Series - occupying a space which had been left blank in Ruskin's catalogues of the Series.
Although Ruskin wrote little about the Duomo as a whole, there are two more drawings of details from the church in the Oxford collections: the current Rudimentary Series no. 90 is a drawing of the inscription on the foundation stone; Reference Series no. 86 contained a study from the portico's left pier.
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Details
- Artist/maker
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John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
- Object type
- drawing
- Material and technique
- graphite, watercolour and bodycolour on paper, some lines ruled
- Dimensions
- 502 x 335 mm
- Associated place
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- Europe › Italy › Toscana (Tuscany) › Lucca › Lucca › Lucca Duomo › Lucca Duomo (subject)
- Provenance
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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.085
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Subject terms allocated by curators:
Subjects
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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. 287
Ruskin, John, The Diaries of John Ruskin, ed. Joan Evans and John Howard Whitehouse, 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956-1959), pl. 58, f.p. 806
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), vol. XXI, frontispiece
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. 85
Ruskin, John, ‘Notes By Mr. Ruskin ... on His Drawings by the Late J. M. W. Turner, R. A., [and] on His Own Handiwork Illustrative of Turner’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), 13, no. 59 = XIII.527
Location
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- Western Art Print Room
