The work of more than 80 Italian Renaissance artists will go on display at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace from tomorrow (Friday, 1 November), in the widest-ranging exhibition of drawings from the period ever shown in the UK.

Drawing the Italian Renaissance brings together around 160 drawings by artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, as well as lesser-known names, to demonstrate how drawing flourished between 1450 and 1600. Over 30 works are on display for the first time, and a further 12 have never been shown in the UK.

Martin Clayton, curator of Drawing the Italian Renaissance, said: ‘The Royal Collection holds an astonishing array of Italian Renaissance drawings, and brought together on this scale, they show just how dynamic and exciting drawing became during this period. Viewing these drawings up close gives us an intimate insight into the artist’s mind and creative process, almost as if we are looking over their shoulder and watching them work. These drawings cannot be on permanent display for conservation reasons, so this is a once-in-a-generation chance to see such a breadth of Italian Renaissance masterpieces together in one exhibition.’

During the Italian Renaissance, as paper became more accessible and new materials were introduced, drawing became central to every stage of the artist’s process. Visitors will see drawings created as preparatory works for a wide range of projects, from paintings, architecture and sculpture, to metalwork, tapestry and costume – as well as rare examples of drawings created as finished works of art in their own right.

Star works by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo highlight the variety of works on display, from functional design sheets to highly finished drawings. A busy sheet by Leonardo shows the artist in the early stages of laying out a new composition of the Virgin and child (c.1478-80). The drawing is dominated by a sketch of the Virgin Mary, her head drawn in two possible positions, with the infant Christ and John the Baptist on her knees. Scattered around this are a multitude of other heads – a young child, an old man, lions and even a dragon – as the artist made the most of the large sheet of paper to capture his stream of ideas. Leonardo’s study The drapery of a kneeling figure (c.1491–94) for the painting The Virgin of the Rocks now in The National Gallery, is more worked up, but still we get the sense of the artist hard at work in the studio with ink all over his fingers, through a partial fingerprint left in the bottom corner.

In contrast, Michelangelo’s A children's bacchanal (1533), a bizarre scene created as a gift for a Roman nobleman with whom he had fallen in love, is a meticulous and remarkably accomplished drawing, with each figure built up using tiny strokes of red chalk. The drawing is in perfect condition, allowing us to see every touch of the artist’s hand.

The exhibition also shines a light on lesser-known artists who produced some of the finest drawings of the period. A striking example is a dynamic study of a young man from c.1590, newly reattributed to Pietro Faccini, and last exhibited in Rome over 50 years ago. The strong jaw, fleshy lips, and pared-back use of oiled charcoal are all typical of the Bolognese artist, who fell into obscurity due to a lack of surviving paintings. 

Another less familiar name will be that of the Carracci family – brothers Annibale and Agostino, and their cousin Ludovico – who founded an informal academy that insisted on the importance of drawing from life. They worked in a variety of genres as they prepared compositions for paintings including altarpieces and friezes – such as Ludovico Carracci’s sketch of A seated male nude (c.1590) – as well as fictional landscapes. On display for the first time is an amusing early work by Annibale Carracci, A landscape with a lobster (c.1590), showing the sea creature with a nutcracker, possibly depicting a proverb or joke about the lobster not managing to crack a nut with its own claws.

Visitors will discover the draughtsmanship of artists better known today for working in other mediums. In Paolo Veronese’s A prophet or philosopher (c.1557), we see the famed painter experimenting with the twisting shape of a body, sketching multiple versions of the same bearded man. Executed in black and white chalks on blue paper, the drawing is thought to be a study for Veronese’s decorations of the Library of St Mark, Venice.

On display for the first time is the large-scale The Virgin and Child (c.1570–80) by Bernardino Campi. As a cartoon, used to transfer a final design onto a painting’s surface, the drawing was executed on poor-quality paper and never intended to be kept – let alone displayed. In preparation for the exhibition, this rare survival underwent approximately 120 hours of conservation treatment by Royal Collection Trust conservators to remove a degraded canvas backing and support sections where the paper had become as delicate as lace. 

At times, the viewer can imagine what it was like to be a patron seeing their commission come to life. A recently conserved, 1.36-metre-high drawing of an extravagant candelabrum (c.1560-80) attributed to Marco Marchetti, features a noticeably asymmetrical design and a riot of different motifs – presumably acting almost as a menu, from which a patron could select the elements he liked the most.

Reflecting the continued importance of drawing for artists and creatives today, The King’s Gallery’s will host its first Artists in Residence programme, organised in partnership with the Royal Drawing School. The artists Jesse Ajilore, Joshua Pell and Sara Lee Roberts – whose work ranges from computer game design to urban landscapes – will be drawing in the gallery on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays throughout the exhibition’s run, bringing a fresh perspective to the Renaissance masterpieces on display. Visitors to the exhibition will also be encouraged to try their hand at drawing, with paper and pencils available in the gallery, and will hear from one of the artists, Jesse Ajilore, on the complimentary multimedia guide.

Ends

Drawing the Italian Renaissance is at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, 1 November 2024 – 9 March 2025. 

A selection of images is available via Dropbox. For further information and images, please contact the Royal Collection Trust Press Office, +44 (0)20 7839 1377, [email protected].

As part of Royal Collection Trust’s charitable aim to find welcoming and inclusive ways for everyone to enjoy the Collection, £1 tickets for the exhibition are available to those receiving Universal Credit and other named benefits.

In addition to £1 tickets, The King’s Gallery continues to offer a range of concessionary rates, while visitors who purchase standard tickets directly from Royal Collection Trust can convert them into a 1-Year Pass, allowing free re-entry for 12 months.

Visitor information and tickets for The King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace: www.rct.uk, T. +44 (0)30 3123 7301. The King’s Gallery is open Thursday to Monday, remaining closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. 

The complementary publication Be Inspired: To Draw Like a Renaissance Master is a workbook combining drawing exercises and pages for sketching with an introductory essay by curator Martin Clayton, and is available at £16.95 from Royal Collection Trust shops, royalcollectionshop.co.uk, and all good bookshops.

An accompanying programme of events at The King’s Gallery includes: 

• A performance of Italian Renaissance music in collaboration with the Royal College of Music (4 November).

• Lunchtime lectures by exhibition curator Martin Clayton: an introduction exploring how art dramatically transformed during the Renaissance period (11 November) and a talk on the patrons of the Italian Renaissance (3 February).

• A creative course in collaboration with The School of Historical Dress, exploring the construction of clothing made for courtiers of the Italian Renaissance (16 January).

• A lecture on the central role of dining during the Italian Renaissance with food historian Marc Meltonville (23 January). 

• An in-conversation event with exhibition curator Martin Clayton and art historian and broadcaster Andrew Graham-Dixon (13 February). 

• Drop-in ‘Masterclass’ sessions (7 December and 11 January) and a full-day drawing workshop led by the Artist in Residence Sara Lee Roberts focussing on drawing the human figure (11 December).

Notes to Editors

Royal Collection Trust is a charity caring for the Royal Collection and welcoming visitors to the royal palaces. We bring our shared history to life through world-class experiences that involve and inspire people, wherever they are. Income from tickets and retail sales helps us to conserve the Collection so that it can be enjoyed by everyone for generations to come. 

The Royal Collection is one of the world’s great art collections, held in trust by The King for his successors and the nation. With over a million objects, from paintings, drawings and books to sculpture, furniture and jewellery, it is a unique record of the tastes of British kings and queens over the past 500 years, with many items still used today for their original purpose. The Collection can be seen in palaces, museums and galleries across the UK and around the world, and can be explored online at www.rct.uk. 

The Royal Drawing School – Artists in Residence

The artists in residence for this exhibition are alumni of the Royal Drawing School’s Drawing Year, a full scholarship, postgraduate-level drawing programme. Charging no fees and taught by leading practising artists, students benefit from in-person tuition, a dedicated studio space, a lecture programme, and a celebrated end of year exhibition. More information about the artists can be found here. 
The Royal Drawing School (RDS) is independent and not-for-profit, ensuring artists and creatives everywhere can access world-leading skills-based drawing tuition regardless of background, age or circumstance.  The RDS delivers over 350 different full and part-time drawing courses each year for adults and children, from beginner to postgraduate level. Based in East London, but supporting artists everywhere, courses are run in the Shoreditch studios, online, in green and urban spaces and in major museums and galleries. The Royal Drawing School was founded in 2000 by HM King Charles III and artist Catherine Goodman CBE LVO.