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

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

Ruskin's Standard & Reference series (1872)

Exemplary works of art. In the catalogue of the Reference series, items marked 'M' are drawings "by my own Hand" (by Ruskin), P are photographs, E engravings and A by Ruskin's Assistant, Arthur Burgess.

Standard & Reference Cover

Ruskin's Catalogue of the Reference Series / 8th Cabinet

    • unidentified - Engraving of a Relief of Ramesses II receiving Suppliants from the Depiction of the Battle of Qadesh in the Great Hall of the Temple at Abu Simbel 176. Rameses III. and suppliants.
    • unidentified - Engraving of a Relief of the Chariot of Ramesses II from the Depiction of the Battle of Qadesh in the Great Hall of the Temple at Abu Simbel 177. Chariot of Rameses III.
    • Engraving of a Relief of the Battle of Qadesh in the Great Hall of the Temple at Abu Simbel 178. Encampment of Rameses III. Rosellini, Tavole, tom. i. pl. 83. See the text, tom. iv. p. 119, &c.
    • unidentified, after Duchesne and Alessandro Ricci - Engraving of a Painting of Merneptah adoring Re-Harakhti, from Merneptah's Tomb at Biban el-Moluk 179. Menepthah II. adoring Phre. Rosellini, Tavole, tom. i. pl. 118. Text, tom. iv. p. 305.
    • unidentified - Engraving of a Painting of Ramesses III adoring Isis and Ptah-Sokar, from Ramesses' Tomb at Biban el-Moluk 180. Rameses IV. adoring Isis and Osiris. Rosellini, Tavole, tom. i. pl. 145. Text, tom. v. p. 104.

    These plates, of which 101 and 102 are portions of 103 enlarged, represent, accurately enough for general intelligibleness, the manner of fine Egyptian art in coloured intaglio. And the study of the development of this form of decoration will introduce us to every condition of good Gothic sculpture.

    Observe, respecting these plates of Rosellini, that the colours are in great part conjecturally restored; slight traces of the original pigments, and those changed by time, being interpreted often too arbitrarily: and that the beauty or vulgarity of any given colour, much more that of its harmony with others, is determined by delicacies of hue which no restorer can be secure of obtaining, and few attempt to obtain.

    The student, therefore, can only depend on these plates for the disposition of the colours, not for their qualities.

Arts and Humanities Research Council

University of Oxford

The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art

Ashmolean

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