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

This section illustrates the Collection’s broad range, from botanical engravings to the work of artists such as Turner and Burne-Jones. It also contains the work of some of the many talented – but largely unsung – artists who assisted Ruskin by producing drawings for the Collection.

Unknown engraver, Rush (Juncus Lævis)

A plate from the Floræ Danicæ, published in 23 volumes from 1764 to 1883. Ruskin has added the lettering himself, to aid his explanation of the parts of the rush, one of the most basic types of Drosida. He spoke highly of the honesty and care of the book’s earlier engravings.

Francesca Alexander, The Gipsy Prophesying

A leaf from a manuscript book of Tuscan songs assembled by Alexander and bought by Ruskin, who oversaw the publication of some of the text and drawings as Roadside Songs of Tuscany in 1885. Ruskin valued her work highly, praising its sincerity, truthfulness, industriousness, modesty and depiction of human feeling.

Arthur Burgess, The Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds from the Bronze Doors of San Zeno, Verona

Burgess worked as Ruskin’s assistant, producing many studies for the Collection. Massively enlarged from a photograph, this drawing omits much of the detail still visible on the 12th-century doors themselves. Ruskin, unsurprisingly, mistook the shepherds with their stylised hair for the magi.

John Wharlton Bunney, The South Porch of the Duomo, Verona

A student of Ruskin’s at the London Working Men’s College, Bunney moved to Italy in 1863, eventually settling in Venice where he made many drawings of old buildings before they were restored. He and Ruskin worked together in Verona in the summer of 1869.

Frank Randal, The Entrance to the Chapel of St Michel d’Aiguilhe, Le Puy

Little is known of Randal, although the collection contains six of his drawings. Ruskin visited St Michel d’Aiguilhe with his parents in 1840.

Thomas Matthews Rooke, A Street in Brig, looking towards the Simplon Pass

Rooke, an assistant of Burne-Jones, worked for Ruskin at intervals from 1879 until 1887, making drawings in Venice, Switzerland and France. Ruskin sent him to Brig in July 1884, asking for ‘as much of the quaint streets and general picturesque as you feel able for’. The drawing shows the onion-dome of the 17th-century Stockalperschloss.

          
Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Scenes from the Story of Cupid and Psyche: The Song at her Getting Up, Psyche Spying, Cerberus

Four drawings for woodcuts intended for an illustrated edition of William Morris’s The Earthly Paradise, taken from the 46 in the Teaching Collection. They show Psyche getting up after her first night with Cupid, the fatal moment when she sees her sleeping lover for the first time and how she placated Cerberus with honey-cakes when sent to the Underworld by Venus. Ruskin particularly admired the purity of Burne-Jones’ outlines, and called these drawings more valuable even than the Turners he had given to the University.

J.M.W. Turner, The Junction of the Greta and the Tees at Rokeby

Ruskin considered this the ‘best of all’ his Turners, noting that he had paid 500 guineas for it. It embodied ‘aidos’ or admiration, ‘the various feelings of wonder, reverence, awe, and humility, which are needful for all lovely work’.