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

The main criterion for inclusion within the project is that a work formed part of the Ruskin Teaching Collection, i.e. that it was part of the collections assembled by Ruskin as an aid to teaching his drawing classes at the University.

Objects which were included

• Works which are currently part of the Ruskin Teaching Collection
• Works which are known to have once been part of the Ruskin Teaching Collection and which have already been identified as such
• Works which are known to have once been part of the Ruskin Teaching Collection and which have been identified as such by research carried out for the Elements of Drawing
• Works which are known to have once been part of the Ruskin Teaching Collection and which have subsequently decayed or been lost

Objects which were excluded

• Works by Ruskin now in the Ashmolean Museum which were never part of the Ruskin Teaching Collection
• Works given to the Museum by Ruskin which were never part of the Ruskin Teaching Collection
• Works lent to the Museum by Ruskin which were never part of the Ruskin Teaching Collection
• Ruskin’s other written works on the teaching and practice of drawing

Texts which were digitised

Throughout the 1870s and 80s Ruskin rearranged and made additions to the content of the teaching collections he had assembled at Oxford, the Guild of St George in Sheffield, and Whitelands College, Chelsea, necessitating major changes to the catalogues. These were stabilised after his death by E. T. Cook and A. Wedderburn (vol. 21 of The Works of John Ruskin, 39 vols, London and New York, 1903-12, now available on a CD-ROM published by Cambridge University Press). However, this represents a compound edition, from which it is difficult to gain an impression of the scope of the collection at any one point during Ruskin’s involvement with Oxford. Consequently, the project used the various catalogues produced by Ruskin during his lifetime to determine the scope of the collections and their changing arrangements. These catalogues comprise 10 printed editions and 2 manuscripts:

1. John Ruskin, Catalogue of Examples Arranged for Elementary Study in the University Galleries, Oxford (Clarendon Press): 1870. [Reference and Standard Series together, as well as Educational Series.]
2. John Ruskin, Catalogue of the Educational Series, London (Smith, Elder & Co.): 1871. [Educational Series.]
3. John Ruskin, Catalogue of the Reference Series including temporarily the First Section of the Standard Series, London (Smith, Elder & Co.): [1872]. [Reference and Standard Series together.]
4. John Ruskin, Instructions in Elementary Drawing, s.n.: [1872]. [Rudimentary Series; Cook & Wedderburn’s “1st edition”.]
5. John Ruskin, Instructions in Elementary Drawing, s.n.: [1872]. [Rudimentary Series; Cook & Wedderburn’s “2nd edition”.]
6. John Ruskin, Instructions in Practice of Elementary Drawing, Arranged with Reference to the First Series of Examples in the Drawing Schools of the University of Oxford, s.n.: [1872]. [Rudimentary Series; Cook & Wedderburn’s “3rd edition, 1st issue”.]
7. John Ruskin, Instructions in Practice of Elementary Drawing, Arranged with Reference to the First Series of Examples in the Drawing Schools of the University of Oxford, s.n.: [1872] . [Rudimentary Series; Cook & Wedderburn’s “3rd edition, 2nd issue”.]
8. John Ruskin, Instructions in the Preliminary Exercises arranged for the Lower Drawing-School, Oxford, London (Smith, Elder & Co.): 1872. [Rudimentary Series; Cook & Wedderburn’s “4th edition”.]
9. John Ruskin, Instructions in the Preliminary Exercises arranged for the Lower Drawing-School, Oxford, London (Spottiswoode & Co.): 1873. [Rudimentary Series; Cook & Wedderburn’s “5th edition”.]
10. John Ruskin, Catalogue of the Educational Series, London (Spottiswoode & Co.): 1874. [Educational Series.]
11. John Ruskin, ‘Educational Series 1878’. [Educational Series; MS, Oxford University Archives: RS 13/2.]
12. John Ruskin, ‘Rudimentary Series 1878’. [Rudimentary Series; MS, Oxford University Archives: RS 13/3.]

The project includes all except items (4), (5) and (7), which have proved impossible to trace.

Further information has also been gathered from the most notable subsequent, unified editions of Ruskin’s catalogues:

1. John Ruskin, The Ruskin Art Collection at Oxford: Catalogues, Notes and Instructions, London (George Allen): 1906. (The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, Volume XXI.) Contains:
   1. edition of the 1870 & 1872 catalogues of the Standard and Reference series (plus the 1870 catalogue of the Educational series, found within the Catalogue of Examples) (pp. 5-54)
   2. compound edition of the 1871 & 1874 catalogues of the Educational Series (pp. 55-144) ; with the 1878 MS (pp. 145-160)
   3. compound edition of the four 1872 editions and one 1873 edition of the catalogue of the Rudimentary and Reference Series (pp. 161-264)
   4. those parts of the 1878 MS Rudimentary catalogue not incorporated into (c) above (pp. 265-298)
   5. a catalogue of works not in the series which were to be found in the Schools in 1906 (including the Working Series, Supplementary Cabinet, Long Cabinet, Francesca Cabinet and Turner Cabinets) (pp. 299-308)
   6. Appendix I: The Oxford Art School Series (pp. 311-315)
   7. Appendix II: ‘Note by Professor Ruskin’, 1883 (p. 316)
2. John Ruskin, The Ruskin Art Collection at Oxford: Catalogue of the Rudimentary Series, in the arrangement of 1873, with Ruskin’s comments of 1878, edited, with an introduction, notes and appendix by Robert Hewison, London (Lion and Unicorn Press): 1984.