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

The print shows a padded chair and a footstool, both decorated with diagonal bands of colour.

It is part of a series representing various Egyptian furnishings and domestic goods, and is taken from the second volume of plates from Ippolito Rosellini's "Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia", published in 1834. Unfortunately, Rosellini does not discuss this particular chair, or identify the site of the original representation from which it was copied. It was first catalogued by Ruskin in the "Catalogue of Examples" of 1870, as no. 14 B in the Educational Series, where he entitled it "Egyptian chair". However, it did not reappear in any of his subsequent catalogues, and so was not part of the collection transferred to the University in the Deed of Gift of 31 May 1875. As it can no longer be found, it is represented here by a plate from the volume in the Sackler Library of the University of Oxford.

The draughtsman of the original cannot be identified with certainty: listed on the bottom left of the sheet from which this image is taken as 'Ros.', it may have been either Ippolito Rosellini or Gaetano Rosellini.

In a note in "The Ethics of the Dust", explaining how the individual aspects of the Egyptian deities were still largely unknown, Ruskin was somewhat sceptical of Rosellini's qualities: 'for the full titles and utterances of the gods, Rosellini is as yet the only - and I believe, still a very questionable - authority' (Ethics of the Dust, note III = XVIII.363). In his entry below nos 176-180 in the Reference Series, Ruskin again questioned Rosellini's accuracy, noting that the colours were sometimes conjectural, 'slight traces of the original pigments, and those changed by time, being interpreted often too arbitrarily' (Standard and Reference Series catalogue, p. 22).

chair

colour

painting

stool

Ruskin, John, Catalogue of Examples Arranged for Elementary Study in the University Galleries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1870), cat. Educational no. 14.B

Rosellini, Ippolito, I monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia: Disegnati dalla spedizione scientifico-letteraria toscana in Egitto: distributi in ordine di materie, 12 (Pisa: Presso N. Capurro, 1832-1844), pt II, Tavole, pl. XC, fig. 3

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