Jacob Bean, Felice Stampfle, "Drawings from New York Collections", . Vol. 1-3 (Italy)

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Jacob Bean, Felice Stampfle, "Drawings from New York Collections", . Vol. 1-3 (Italy)

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Drawings from New York Collections. Vol. 1, The Italian Renaissance
The exhibition described and fully illustrated in this catalogue is the first in an extended series that will display the resources of collections of master drawings located in New York City and its environs. While the holdings of public institutions are reasonably well known, the drawings in private collections are generally less so, and we therefore hope to perform a service for both the interested public and art scholarship in our projected series of exhibitions and catalogues, which will encompass the drawings of Western European artists from the Italian Renaissance to the end of the nineteenth century.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Pierpont Morgan Library possess the two major collections of drawings in the United States, and both are continuing to grow by purchases, gifts, and bequests. Because both institutions are fortunate enough to be in this position, and because both owe an incalculable debt to the vision, the standards of excellence, and the generosity of J. Pierpont Morgan and his son, J. P. Morgan, it has seemed wholly appropriate that they should join forces in presenting these exhibitions to the public. They will alternate between the two institutions, this first exhibition being held at the Metropolitan, and the second in the series, also of Italian drawings, at the Morgan Library during the winter of 1966–1967.

New York is a relative newcomer among the world's centers of master drawings collections, and even today the breadth of the city's resources owes much to the continuing activity and the discerning eye of collectors whose initial enthusiasm was nourished abroad. This catalogue and its successors will demonstrate what progress has been made in assembling here representative examples of the work of the leading draughtsmen of the past five centuries.

Drawings from New York Collections. Vol. 2, The Seventeenth Century in Italy
This exhibition is the second in a comprehensive series inaugurated in November 1965, which illustrates the art of drawing through the resources of public and private collections located in New York City and its suburbs. Organized jointly by The Pierpont Morgan Library and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibitions alternate between the two institutions, the first, of the Italian Renaissance, having been shown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the second now taking place at the Morgan Library. Each exhibition is commemorated in a catalogue, in which every drawing is fully described and illustrated.

This series was a cooperative venture in which the Metropolitan's late Director, James J. Rorimer, took particular pleasure, participating actively in its planning, reading with a close critical eye the printer's proof of the first catalogue, and presiding at the inaugural exhibition. We shall carry on the projected series, but with a deep sense of loss.

Italian painting of the seventeenth century aroused little enthusiasm among Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. It is all the more gratifying that we have been able to assemble so representative a selection of drawings of the period from within our immediate area. To be sure, we have been fortunate as before in being able to borrow from collectors who began their buying as Europeans, but it is also evident that recently in this country museums and their patrons increasingly appreciate seventeenth-century Italian drawings and paintings.

Drawings from New York Collections. Vol. 3, The Eighteenth Century in Italy
This is the third in a series of catalogues published jointly by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Pierpont Morgan Library to record exhibitions of drawings from the two institutions and from distinguished private collections. The exhibitions and the books that illustrate them will ultimately document the finest traditions of European draughtsmanship, from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century.

The Eighteenth Century in Italy, which follows The Italian Renaissance and The Seventeenth Century in Italy, contains reproductions of 300 drawings, presented one to a page. The book brings together, chronologically, brilliant works by G. B. Tiepolo, Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Domenico Tiepolo—as well as drawings of fifty-one other masters of the Settecento.

As in the preceding catalogues, the photographic reproductions have been made directly from the drawings themselves in order to retain, as much as possible, the original tonalities. Each of the 300 drawings has a commentary, record of provenance and exhibitions, technical description, and bibliography. And, for the first time in the series, many watermarks have been drawn and reproduced photographically.

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Jacob Bean, Felice Stampfle, "Drawings from New York Collections", . Vol. 1-3 (Italy)

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