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Drawing of a Lizard and Cartellino from Carpaccio's "Funeral of Saint Jerome" John Ruskin
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Details
- Artist/maker
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John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)after Vittore Carpaccio (1460/06 - 1525/06)
- Object type
- drawing
- Material and technique
- watercolour and bodycolour over graphite on blue wove paper
- Dimensions
- 178 x 232 mm
- Inscription
- Recto:
within the image, in watercolour: VIC TOR CARPATHIVS | FINGEBAT | MDII
below the image, in ink: Carpaccio's signature; exactly under elbow of body of | St Jerome, in burial of St Jerome; two inches beneath it | This real size - but impossible to draw it delicately enough. | JR. Venice. 1870
bottom, from left of centre to right corner, in graphite: Exactly under elbow of body of St Jerome, but [...] it | J.R. 12th May 1870
Verso:
along the left edge, running up the sheet, in graphite: that the hair is [?] meaningless - & | finished much too highly & too ornamental in | latest [...] style | even the eyebrow made art [?] - uselessly. | one can look at nothing but the hair ['much' inserted below the line with a carat]
just right and just left of centre, two impressions of the Ruskin School's stamp
below the right-hand stamp, in ink: M. 42
- 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 1878; transferred from the Ruskin Drawing School to the Ashmolean Museum c.1949
- No. of items
- 1
- Accession no.
- WA.RS.ED.171bis.a
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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. 150
Ruskin, John, ‘Educational Series 1878’, 1878, Oxford, Oxford University Archives, cat. Educational no. 189
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. 171bis
Location
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- Western Art Print Room
Ruskin's Catalogues
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Educational, manuscript (1878)
189.The student will be surprised at first by the placing of this Example in the group of domestic animals . If he will recollect Horace's measure of contented possession:- Unius sese dominum fecisse lacertæ , he may feel that the lizard is indeed the best of all introductions to the races of living creatures meant for our companions. It may farther interest him to hear that when I was an undergraduate I was formally invited by Dr. Buckland to his house in 'Tom Quadrangle', Ch.Ch. to breakfast with some polite little green lizards; I think from Carolina, where their duty is to keep the flies off the plates. The mystic meaning of Carpaccio in placing his own signature in the charge of animals is illustrated in my Lectures. What the creature which ought to be domestic may become, if we neglect it, is seen in the example below.
