Now online: catalogue of Italian Renaissance drawings

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has a world-class collection of Italian Renaissance drawings featuring works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. Drawings from Venice and Florence are especially well represented, with over 400 drawings by Fra Bartolommeo, and groups of studies from the workshops of Benozzo Gozzoli, Jacopo Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Getty Foundation as part of the Getty Paper Project initiative, the museum has been able to research this important but relatively understudied part of the collection. During the course of this research, several new discoveries were made. The collection now contains newly attributed drawings by Pontormo, a painter whose work was central to Florentine Mannerism; the Venetian painter Jacopo Bassano; the fifteenth century Tuscan fresco painter Parri Spinelli; and the Florentine painter Niccolo Gerini. The Boijmans collection also includes important and rare drawings by the sculptor Donatello, the landscape painter Giorgione, and a group of studies on parchment from the early fifteenth century by Pisanello, all of which are now properly represented on our website. The catalogue also includes an essay about the history of the collection.

To celebrate the conclusion of this ambitious project, 120 highlights from the Italian Renaissance drawings will go on display at Fondation Custodia in Paris from 12 October 2024 - 12 January 2025. A further selection of Italian drawings will be on display at Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen from November 2024.