Browse: 1470 objects
© University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum
- Reference URL
Actions
Fribourg, Switzerland: Pen sketch John Ruskin
-
Curator’s description:
Description
This is an incomplete view taken from near the Pont du Gotteron, across the rooftops of Auge (the lower quarter and oldest district of Fribourg), and over the River Sarine to rocky cliffs beyond, on which stand the tower of the Porte de Bourguillon and the Chapelle de Lorette. The houses and trees in the bottom left are sketched in using graphite alone.
Ruskin is known to have visted Fribourg in 1854 and 1856. Because the documentary evidence for his stay in 1854 is scarce, apart from a letter from Fribourg dated 6 August, Taylor concludes it most likely that this drawing was executed in 1856, when Ruskin was in Fribourg from 9 to 14 July and from 22 August to 2 September.
The drawing was first catalogued in the Teaching Collection in 1871, as no. 64 in the Educational Series, housed in Case V, 'Elementary Illustrations of Landscape'; it was renumbered, as no. 114, in the 1874 edition of the Educational Series catalogue, but remained in the same position. The drawing was not moved in Ruskin's 1878 reorganisation of the series, where Ruskin stated that he intended it as the first in a group of 'illustrations of what German and Swiss life were in their happiest associations with landscape about the beginning of this Century'. He was particularly pleased with his portayal of foliage, but disappointed with his inability to convey the wall and rocks correctly.
-
Details
- Artist/maker
-
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
- Object type
- drawing
- Material and technique
- pen and graphite with white bodycolour on brown wove paper
- Dimensions
- 372 x 317 mm
- Associated place
-
- Europe › Switzerland › Fribourg › Fribourg › Porte de Bourguillon › Porte de Bourguillon (subject)
- Europe › Switzerland › Fribourg › Fribourg › Chapel de Lorette › Chapel de Lorette (subject)
- Europe › Switzerland › Fribourg › Sarine › Sarine (subject)
- Europe › Switzerland › Fribourg › Fribourg (subject)
- Inscription
- Verso, towards bottom right, the Ruskin School's stamp
- Provenance
-
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.
- No. of items
- 1
- Accession no.
- WA.RS.ED.114.a
-
Subject terms allocated by curators:
Subjects
-
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. 061
Cook, Edward T., Studies in Ruskin: Some Aspects of the Work and Teaching of John Ruskin (Orpington: George Allen, 1890), pl. V, f.p. 308
Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Smith, Elder, 1871), cat. Educational no. 64
Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Spottiswoode, 1874), cat. Educational no. 114
Ruskin, John, ‘Educational Series 1878’, 1878, Oxford, Oxford University Archives, cat. Educational no. 114
Hayman, John, John Ruskin and Switzerland (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1990), no. 50, p. 66, no. 50, p. 66
Ruskin, John, ‘The Works of John Ruskin’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), vol. V, pl. F, f.p. xxxiv
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. 114
Ruskin, John, ‘Notes By Mr. Ruskin ... on His Drawings by the Late J. M. W. Turner, R. A., [and] on His Own Handiwork Illustrative of Turner’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), 13
Location
-
- Western Art Print Room
Ruskin's Catalogues
-
Ruskin's Educational series, 2nd ed. (1874)
114. Fribourg, Switzerland. Pen sketch, with old print beneath.M -
Educational, manuscript (1878)
R 114.This group will consist, when it is completed, of illustrations of what German and Swiss life were in their happiest associations with landscape about the beginning of this Century. The pen-drawing in the upper subject is very good in the foliage, but I could not express what I wanted in the rock wall and rocks and so gave in.
I leave the remainder of the pieces in this group without further comment at present.
