Drawn from the antique — Teylers Museum

Drawn from the antique

Exhibition with works by Rubens, Goltzius and Turner about the Classical Ideal

Mar 11, 2015 to May 31, 2015

Print Room

Drawn from the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal

Works by Turner, Rubens, Goltzius and Sweerts are on view from 11 March to 31 May 2015 in the intimate setting of Teylers Print Room. The exhibition shows that classical antiquity, and classical statues in particular, were an enormous source of inspiration for artists from the 16th to 19th centuries. The collector Katrin Bellinger is supplying a substantial part of her collection on loan for this show.

The Classical Ideal

Famous statues from classical antiquity such as the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoön and the Venus Pudica were for many centuries the chief attractions of Rome. These 'heroes', or plaster copies of them, were depicted in innumerable paintings, drawings and prints. It was above all the heroic nude from antiquity that inspired artists from all over Europe to produce new, in some cases trail-blazing, creations. Young artists depicted antique sculptures, or copies of them, as part of their training: this was believed to be the best way of learning how to render the classical ideal. The exhibition will include paintings and drawings of academies of art, workshops, and individual studios in which artists are hard at work vying with the ancients.

Katrin Bellinger

The works on display are of outstanding quality. Some of them have never been exhibited before. For this exhibition, the private collector and art dealer Katrin Bellinger has provided on loan a substantial proportion of her collection of works featuring artists' studios. Bellinger, whose husband is the well-known entrepreneur Christoph Henkel, is a leading actor in the international art trade, specialising in old drawings. Besides the works from Katrin Bellinger's private collection, the exhibition also includes loans from museums including the British Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. On 25 June, the exhibition opens at Sir John Soane's Museum in London.

Catalogue

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly-illustrated catalogue, compiled by Adriano Aymonino of the University of Buckingham and Anne Varick Lauder, curator of the Katrin Bellinger Collection. The exhibition has been made possible by the support of the Tavolozza Foundation.