Editing British Museum (section)

===Department of Prints and Drawings===

The Department of [[Old master print|Prints]] and Drawings holds the national collection of [[Western art history|Western]] prints and drawings. It ranks as one of the largest and best [[print room]] collections in existence alongside the [[Albertina, Vienna|Albertina]] in Vienna, the Paris collections and the [[Hermitage Museum|Hermitage]]. The holdings are easily accessible to the general public in the Study Room, unlike many such collections.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/departments/prints_and_drawings/facilities_and_services/study_room.aspx |title=Study room page |work=British Museum |date=14 June 2010 |access-date=4 July 2010 |archive-date=15 December 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101215202335/http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/departments/prints_and_drawings/facilities_and_services/study_room.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref> The department also has its own exhibition gallery in Room 90, where the displays and exhibitions change several times a year.<ref name="bmgal">{{cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/departments/prints_and_drawings/galleries.aspx |title=Prints and Drawings galleries |work=British Museum |date=14 June 2010 |access-date=4 July 2010 |archive-date=3 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120103201342/http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/departments/prints_and_drawings/galleries.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Since its foundation in 1808, the prints and drawings collection has grown to international renown as one of the richest and most representative collections in the world. There are approximately 50,000 drawings and over two million prints.<ref name="bmgal" /> The collection of drawings covers the period from the 14th century to the present, and includes many works of the highest quality by the leading artists of the [[Western art history|European schools]]. The collection of prints covers the tradition of fine [[printmaking]] from its beginnings in the 15th century up to the present, with near complete holdings of most of the great names before the 19th century. Key benefactors to the department have been [[Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode]], [[Richard Payne Knight]], John Malcolm, [[Campbell Dodgson]], [[César Mange de Hauke]] and [[Tomás Harris]]. Writer and author [[Louis Alexander Fagan]], who worked in the department 1869–1894 made significant contributions to the department in form of his ''Handbook to the Department'', as well as various other books about the museum in general.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Owen |first=W.B |title=Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1938 |volume=2}}</ref>

There are groups of drawings by [[Leonardo da Vinci]], [[Raphael]], [[Michelangelo]], (including [[Epifania (Michelangelo drawing)|his only surviving full-scale cartoon]]), [[Albrecht Dürer|Dürer]] (a collection of 138 drawings is one of the finest in existence), [[Peter Paul Rubens]], [[Rembrandt]], [[Claude Lorrain|Claude]] and [[Antoine Watteau|Watteau]], and largely complete collections of the works of all the great printmakers including [[Albrecht Dürer|Dürer]] (99 [[engraving]]s, 6 [[etching]]s and most of his 346 [[woodcut]]s), Rembrandt and [[Francisco Goya|Goya]]. More than 30,000 British drawings and [[Watercolor painting|watercolours]] include important examples of work by [[William Hogarth|Hogarth]], [[Paul Sandby|Sandby]], [[J. M. W. Turner|Turner]], [[Thomas Girtin|Girtin]], [[John Constable|Constable]], [[John Sell Cotman|Cotman]], [[David Cox (artist)|Cox]], [[James Gillray|Gillray]], [[Thomas Rowlandson|Rowlandson]], [[Francis Towne|Towne]] and [[George Cruikshank|Cruikshank]], as well as all the great [[Victorian era|Victorians]]. The collection contains the unique set of [[watercolours]] by the pioneering colonist [[John White (colonist and artist)|John White]], the first British artist in America and first European to paint Native Americans. There are about a million British prints including more than 20,000 satires and outstanding collections of works by [[William Blake]] and [[Thomas Bewick]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2007}}. The great eleven volume [[Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum]] compiled between 1870 and 1954 is the definitive reference work for the study of British Satirical prints. Over 500,000 objects from the department are now on the online collection database, many with high-quality images.<ref>Searches on 8 January 2012, return totals of 700,000, but many are in other departments</ref> A 2011 donation of £1&nbsp;million enabled the museum to acquire a complete set of [[Pablo Picasso]]'s ''[[Vollard Suite]]''.<ref name="TelegNov11">{{Cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/8923722/City-fund-manager-in-1m-Picasso-giveaway.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/8923722/City-fund-manager-in-1m-Picasso-giveaway.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live| title=City fund manager in £1m Picasso giveaway| work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]| first=Anita |last=Singh| access-date=19 May 2012| date=29 November 2011}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

<gallery widths="190" heights="190">
File:Rogier van der Weyden - Portrait of an unknown young woman - British Museum 180945001.jpg|[[Rogier van der Weyden]] - ''[[Portrait of a Young Woman (van der Weyden)|Portrait of a Young Woman]]'', {{circa|1440}}
File:A fool, seated on a basket, about to be shaved by a nun holding a wafer iron by Hieronymus Bosch.jpg|[[Hieronymus Bosch]] - A comical barber scene, {{circa|1477}}–1516
File:Botticelli, allegoria dell'abbondanza, disegno.jpg|[[Sandro Botticelli]] - ''Allegory of Abundance'', 1480–1485
File:Leonardo da vinci, Study for the Burlington House Cartoon.jpg|[[Leonardo da Vinci]] – The [[Islamic views of Mary|Virgin]] and [[Jesus in Islam|Child]] with [[Saint Anne]] and the Infant Saint [[John the Baptist]] (prep for '[[The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist|The Burlington House Cartoon]]'), {{circa|1499}}–1500
File:Adam study - Michelangelo.jpg|[[Michelangelo]] – Studies of a reclining male nude: [[Adam]] in the fresco ''[[The Creation of Adam|The Creation of Man]]'' on the vault of the [[Sistine Chapel]], {{circa|1511}}
File:Raffaello, studio di testa di madonna e bambino.jpg|[[Raphael]] – ''Study of Heads, Mother and Child'', {{circa|1509}}–1511
File:Titian - Drowning of the Pharaoh's Host in the Red Sea - WGA22989.jpg|[[Titian]] – ''[[Crossing the Red Sea|Drowning of the Pharaoh's Host in the Red Sea]]'', 1515–1517
File:Albrecht Dürer - Walrus - WGA07101.jpg|[[Albrecht Dürer]] - Drawing of a walrus, 1521
File:A Lady, called Anne Boleyn, by Hans Holbein the Younger.jpg|[[Hans Holbein the Younger]] - ''Portrait of Anne Boleyn'', 1536
File:Joris and Jacob Hoefnagel - Allegory on Life and Death.jpg|[[Joris Hoefnagel]] and [[Jacob Hoefnagel]] - ''Allegory on Life and Death'', circa 1598
File:Peter Paul Rubens - Study for the figure of Christ on the Cross (cropped).jpg|[[Peter Paul Rubens]] - ''Study for the figure of Christ on the Cross'', 1610
File:Head of a monk, 1625-64, Francisco de Zurbarán. Drawing, 277 x 196 mm. British Museum.jpg|[[Francisco de Zurbarán]] - ''Head of a monk'', 1625–1664
File:Drawing of mules by Claude Lorrain.jpg|[[Claude Lorrain]] - Drawing of mules, including one full-length, 1630–1640
File:The Lamentation at the Foot of the Cross by Rembrandt van Rijn.jpg|[[Rembrandt]] – ''[[Lamentation of Christ|The Lamentation at the Foot of the Cross]]'', 1634–35
File:A woman with a rose drawn by Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|[[Thomas Gainsborough]] - Drawing of a woman with a rose, 1763–1765
File:Newport Castle by JMW Turner.jpg|[[J. M. W. Turner]] - Watercolour of Newport Castle, 1796
File:The happy effects of that grand systom of shutting ports against the English!!.jpg|[[Isaac Cruikshank]] - 'The happy effects of that grand system of shutting ports against the English!!', 1808
File:Hampstead Heath by John Constable watercolour.jpg|[[John Constable]] - ''London from Hampstead Heath in a Storm'', (watercolour), 1831
File:Notes Nocturne lithograph by James McNeill Whistler 1878.jpg|[[James McNeill Whistler]] - ''View of the Battersea side of Chelsea Reach'', London, (lithograph), 1878
File:Van Gogh - In the Orchard - 1883.jpg|[[Vincent van Gogh]] - Man Digging in the Orchard (print), 1883
</gallery>