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

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

Browse: 1470 objects

Reference URL

Actions

Send e-mail

Contact us about this object

Send e-mail

Send to a friend

Print of the Decoration on a Greek Lekythos, showing Leto carrying Apollo, Artemis and the Python P. Bineteau

  • Curator’s description:

    Description

    The lithograph shows a small figure of Apollo, holding a drawn bow, in the arms of Leto (or perhaps, as Lenormant and de Witte suggest, Ortygia); Artemis stands beside them. The Python is coiled amongst the rocks on the right. The print reproduces the decoration of a burnt white-ground lekythos then in the collection of Monsieur Dubois, under-curator at the Louvre. The print was plate I A in the second volume of Lenormant and de Witte's "Elite des monuments céramographiques", published in 1857. It was presumably taken from Ruskin's copy of the work now preserved in the Ruskin Library (inventory no. 1996B2621), which is missing many of its plates.

    The print was first catalogued by Ruskin in 1871, when it appeared as no. 127 in the Educational Series, entitled "The Python. Latona, Apollo, and Artemis", placed in Case VIII, "Elementary Zoology". It was framed together with a plate of Leto clutching Apollo and Artemis as she flees the Python, also from Lenormant and de Witte. It remained in the same position, although renumbered as no. 177, in the 1874 catalogue of the series, but does not appear in Ruskin's 1878 reorganisation of the series.

  • Details

    Artist/maker
    P. Bineteau (active c. 1857 - c. 1858) (printer)
    A. Rey (active c. 1844 - c. 1858) (lithographer)
    Object type
    print
    Material and technique
    watercolour over lithograph on wove paper
    Dimensions
    97 x 180 mm (stone); 184 x 247 mm (sheet)
    Inscription
    All printed, just outside the border of the image:
    top left: T.II.
    top right: PL. I, A.
    bottom left, faint: Lith. de Bineteau.
    bottom right, faint: A. Rey, sc.

    Recto, just beside the top right corner of the image, in ink, running down the page: R

    Verso, centre, the Ruskin School's stamp
    Provenance

    Presented by John Ruskin to the Ruskin Drawing School (University of Oxford), 1875; transferred from the Ruskin Drawing School to the Ashmolean Museum, c.1949.

    No. of items
    1
    Accession no.
    WA.RS.ED.177.a
  • Subject terms allocated by curators:

    Subjects

  • References in which this object is cited include:

    References

    Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Smith, Elder, 1871), cat. Educational no. 127

    Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Spottiswoode, 1874), cat. Educational no. 177

    Lenormant, Charles, and Jean de Witte, Elite des monuments céramographiques: Matériaux pour l'histoire des religions et des moeurs de l'antiquité, 4 vols in 8 (Paris: Leleux, 1844-1861), vol. II, pl. I A

    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. Educational no. 177

Location

    • Western Art Print Room

Position in Ruskin’s Collection

Ruskin's Catalogues

© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum