Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe, c. 1500–1750

Prints and drawings have been keenly collected in Europe since at least the early sixteenth century. Relatively modest in price, they offered artists, amateurs and collectors of a systematic turn of mind the opportunity to put together holdings with a wide representation of different hands, schools and types of subject. Prints and drawings are traditionally treated separately, but their collecting is shown here to raise many interrelated issues. Employing a wide range of methodologies, the essays in this volume offer a number of innovative investigations into the collecting, perception, classication and display of works on paper.

Prints and drawings have been keenly collected in the west since at least the early sixteenth century. Relatively modest in price, they offered artists, amateurs and collectors of a systematic turn of mind the opportunity to put together collections with a wide representation of different hands, schools and types of subject. Prints and drawings are traditionally treated separately, but their collecting is shown here to raise many inter-related issues. Employing a wide range of methodologies, the essays in this volume offer a number of innovative investigations into the collecting, perception, classification and display of works on paper. Recurring themes include collecting as a statement about identity, and the role of a collection as a locus of social interaction, for the discussion of attribution, technique, subject matter and other historical, artistic and literary issues. Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe is published in association with the Burlington Magazine.