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

The lithograph shows Triptolemus on the left, sitting in his chariot and holding a long sceptre and several ears of wheat. On the right is Dionysus, also in a chariot, holding a cantharus and several stylised branches of ivy. It reproduces the decoration of a black-figure amphora then in the possession of Charles Lenormant. It was plate XLIX A in the third volume of Lenormant and de Witte's "Elite des monuments céramographiques", published in 1858. It was presumably taken from Ruskin's copy of the work now preserved in the Ruskin Library (inventory no. 1996B2621), which is missing many of its plates.

The print was first catalogued by Ruskin in 1870, as no. 202 in the Standard Series, framed with another print from Lenormant and de Witte of a red-figure illustration of Triptolemus with Demeter and Persephone; they formed part of a series 'arranged chiefly with the view of showing the change in Greek conception of deity'. It retained its number in the 1871 catalogue of the Standard and Reference Series but, by the time Cook and Wedderburn were compiling their edition of the catalogues (published in 1906), the frame had been moved to no. 184. Cook and Wedderburn note (XXI.45 n. 1) that it carried its original number (202) on the edge of its frame, but the new number (184) on the face. Presumably, it was easier to engrave and attach a new ivory label on the edge of the frame than it was to remove or gild over the painted number on the face.

Cook and Wedderburn describe (XXI.47 n. 1) how 'Ruskin used to set his pupils to copy the wheel [of Triptolemus's chariot] as a test of drawing'. A large lecture diagram of the figure of Triptolemus is preserved in the colection of the Ruskin Foundation, and Hewison (Ruskin and Oxford, no. 20) suggests that it may have been referred to extempore during Ruskin's lectures on sculpture in the autumn of 1870. Cook and Wedderburn reproduced the same detail in their edition of the Standard and Reference catalogue (XXI.48, fig. 1).

According to Ruskin, the change in the ancient Greek conception of deity took place between the sixth and fourth centuries BC, and was marked by a development from conceiving of the gods as embodiments of physical forces to individual, characterised intelligences; from active to passive figures; and from grotesque to deliberately-selected beautiful depictions. At the same time, ceramic decoration changed from painting black figures on the red ground to painting a black background, letting the red ground show through in the figures themselves - though this soon led to careless execution. He believed the best vases were red-figure vases produced just after the transition (Catalogue of Examples, pp. 25-27; Standard and Reference catalogue, pp. 28-30).

ceramic

chariot

deity

ivy (Hedera)

man

sceptre

wheat (Triticum)

wheel

Ruskin, John, Catalogue of Examples Arranged for Elementary Study in the University Galleries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1870), cat. Standard no. 202

Lenormant, Charles, and Jean de Witte, Elite des monuments céramographiques: Matériaux pour l'histoire des religions et des moeurs de l'antiquité, 4 vols in 8 (Paris: Leleux, 1844-1861), vol. III, pl. XLIX A

Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Reference Series Including Temporarily the First Section of the Standard Series (London: Smith, Elder, [1872]), cat. Reference no. 202

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. Reference no. 184