Holbein to Hockney

The Royal Library at Windsor Castle houses one of the world's greatest collections of drawings. Collected by individual monarchs over the last five centuries, they range from portraits by Hans Holbein, recorded in the collection on the death of King Henry VIII in 1547, to drawings by contemporary artists such as David Hockney, presented to and commissioned by The Queen during the current reign. Charles II acquired an unrivalled group of studies by Leonardo da Vinci, along with many other drawings by the artists of the Italian Renaissance; George III purchased thousands of drawings by the greatest artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Poussin, Bernini and Canaletto; and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert commissioned many hundreds of watercolours as mementoes of their lives together. The seventy-five drawings included here have been selected from every important group in the Royal Library, ranging from quick sketches to finished works of art, and include compositional studies, portraits, drawings from the model, nature studies, and landscapes. The finest draftsmen of the last 500 years are represented, including Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer, Claude, Van Dyck, Landseer and Sargent. This book gives an insight into one of the finest collections of drawings in existence.