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.
Taylor, Gerald, ‘John Ruskin: A Catalogue of Drawings by John Ruskin in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, 7 fascicles, 1998, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, no. 137
Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Smith, Elder, 1871), cat. Educational no. 148
Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Spottiswoode, 1874), cat. Educational no. 198
Ruskin, John, Catalogue of Examples Arranged for Elementary Study in the University Galleries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1870), cat. Educational no. 33
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. 198
To show use of pencil and white for studies of organic form. It is nearly always necessary to make these on a larger scale than nature’s, else it is impossible to express the refinements of structure; but they should not be drawn by help of a lens; they should be the easy expression on a large scale of the form, attentively observed by the naked eye, at the distance which the size of the object may render convenient.