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

Frontispiece Etching Begins the series of xxv examples chosen from the Liber Studorium, with the etching from the Frontispiece entirely by his own hand and showing, more clearly than the finished plate, the materials of which he meant the work to be composed. An epitome of what the xixth.. century had to meditate on; viz. Classical Architecture, fallen, Norman Architecture, standing, with Gothic above it, confusion of Rustic or familiar objects surrounding these, and a Picture in the centre into which all these are supposed to be combined as the End of their existence - the whole signed and symbolised, as it were, by the Peacock in its character of Phoenix, or Resuscitation. In this accumulation of object it is interesting to trace what were the most important materials in Turner’s own mind; but it is not easy to understand the meaning of the caduceus of Hermes in the group of dock-leaves and thistles, nor why so great importance should be attached to Fish, while we have only one Bird and no Beasts. The etching is all by Turner’s own hand, and in his finest manner. The subject of the central Picture The rape of Europa, the mast and yard of the lateral sail antique .