The work of more than 80 Italian Renaissance artists is on display at The King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London, until 9 March, in the widest-ranging exhibition of drawings from the period ever shown in the UK.

Drawing the Italian Renaissance © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust

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.

Drawing the Italian Renaissance © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust

“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.”

The Royal Collection is one of the world’s great art collections, held in trust by The King for his successors and the United Kingdom. Royal Collection Trust is the charity caring for the Royal Collection and welcoming visitors to the royal palaces.

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.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin and Child with infant Baptist, and heads in profile, c.1478–80 © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust

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 in London, 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.

Attributed to Pietro Faccini, The head of a youth, c.1590 © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust

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.

Bernardino Campi, The Virgin and Child, c.1570–80 © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust

Also 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.

Drawing the Italian Renaissance © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust

Janet Redler, Managing Director of Janet Redler Travel, said: “This landmark exhibition at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, shines a light on the incredible art of the Italian Renaissance and the drawings that went into creating some of the greatest masterpieces. Not to be missed by art-lovers!”

If you or your group would like to visit Drawing the Italian Renaissance on a winter tour to London, please do contact our friendly team today. Or perhaps you would like to enjoy a visit to the King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace on a tour of England – if so, we can help.