Ruskin painstakingly depicted the shafts, capitals, and ogival lacework of Venice's most famous Gothic loggia. The red tinge to the first two shafts comes from the use of a different colored marble to mark the place from which sentences of death were proclaimed. Through the loggia, Saint Mark's Basilica is visible. Ruskin, one of the most influential voices in the nineteenth-century art world, had a lasting love for Venice; among his most influential writings was a lengthy study of its history and architecture, The Stones of Venice (1851-53). His impassioned advocacy of the Venetian Gothic was a significant source for Gothic Revival architecture.
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John Ruskin (British); Arthur Severn (British); Sir James Knowles (British), purchased May 1901, for 32 guineas; his sale, Christie's, London, May 28, 1908, lot 357 (to Carfax for £33.12); Vendor: Carfax & Co. (British)Vendor: Through Roger Eliot Fry (British)
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice. "Venezia da Stato a Mito," August 30–November 30, 1997.
Tate Britain. "Ruskin, Turner, and the Pre-Raphaelites," March 9, 2000–May 28, 2000.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," July 25–October 23, 2005.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints: Life at Court," May 1–July 30, 2018.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints: Anniversary Highlights," October 8, 2020–January 18, 2021.
John Ruskin Examples of the Architecture of Venice [folio volume of prints published to accompany "The Stones of Venice"]. parts 1-3, London, 1851, Part 3, fig. 5 (watercolor reproduced as a tinted lithograph by T. S. Boys).
John Ruskin The Works of Ruskin. Sir Edward Tyas Cook, Alexander D. O. Wedderburn, George Allen & Co., Ltd., 39 vols., Library edition. London, 1903–12, vol. 9, pp. xxiv-xxvi, 1, 8-9; vol. 10, pp. 429-32; vol. 11, pp. xxiv-xxv, 311-14, 348 (described), fig. 15 (capitals of the loggia); vol. 38, p. 295, no. 1879 (list of drawings).
Christie's, London A Catalogue of the Collection of Ancient and Modern Pictures and Drawings of Sir James Knowles. [Sale catalogue]. May 27-29, 1908, lot no. 357.
Roger Eliot Fry [as "R.E.F."] "Recent Acquisitions of Drawings (Continued)." in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 4, no. 2, February 1909, p. 25.
Frederick J. Cummings, Robert Rosenblum, Allen Staley Romantic Art in Britain: Paintings and Drawings, 1760-1860. Exh. cat. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts; Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968, cat. no. 207, pp. 291-2, ill.
Robert Hewison Ruskin and Venice. A loan exhibition at The J. B. Speed Art Museum, 16 October–19 November. 1978, cat. no. 42, pp. 67-68, ill.
Susan P. Casteras, Susan P. Gordon, Anthony Lacy Gully, Robert Hewison, George P. Landow, Christopher Newall The Art of Seeing: John Ruskin and the Victorian Eye Ex. cat., Phoenix Art Museum, March 6-May 23, and Indianapolis Museum of Art, June 22-August 29. Phoenix, Arizona, 1993, cat. no. 67, pp. 97-98, ill.
Robert Hewison, Ian Warrell, Stephen Wildman Ruskin, Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. Exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 9 March-28 May. Tate Gallery, London, 2000, cat. no. 83, p. 101, ill.
Laura Hoptman, Dr. Emily King, Margaret-Anne Logan, Duncan Tomlin, Duro Olowu, Farshid Moussavi, Shola von Reinhold The Clamor of Ornament: Exchange, Power, and Joy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present: Drawing Papers 149 Exhibition catalogue, The Drawing Center, New York. 2022, pl. 79 (related etching and mezzotint by Thomas Shotter Boys and Samuel WIlliam Reynolds).
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The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.
