Christ Church Picture Gallery

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Christ Church Picture Gallery
Location map United Kingdom Oxford Central.png
Red pog.svg
Location within Oxford
Established1968
Location Oxford, England
Type Art museum
Website www.chch.ox.ac.uk/gallery
Butcher's Shop by Annibale Carracci, c.1583, one of the paintings by Caracci in the gallery. Carracci-Butcher's shop.jpg
Butcher's Shop by Annibale Carracci, c.1583, one of the paintings by Caracci in the gallery.

Christ Church Picture Gallery is an art gallery located inside Christ Church, a college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. The gallery holds an important collection of about 300 Old Master paintings and nearly 2,000 drawings.

Contents

The gallery consists largely of Italian art from the 14th to 18th centuries. including paintings by famous artists such as Fra Angelico, Salvator Rosa and Paolo Veronese. The gallery also holds drawings by Raphael, Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo, and a great range of other Italian and European artists, as well as a collection of Russian icons.

The greater part of the collection was bequeathed by a former member of the college, General John Guise, arriving after his death in 1765. Since then, the collection has been supplemented by several bequests, notably from William Fox-Strangways and Walter Savage Landor, both of thom donated 14th and 15th-century Italian paintings.

The gallery is open to the public.

History

The picture gallery's collection was started by a bequest of 184 paintings and around 2000 drawings from General John Guise, a former Christ Church undergraduate and British army officer who had fought at the Battle of Oudenarde. [1] [2] His bequest consisted of Italian paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries, with painters such as Tintoretto, Annibale Carracci and Paolo Veronese represented. The 14th and 15th-century paintings were donated by W. T. H. Fox-Strangways and Walter Savage Landor. Both men had lived in Florence in the 1820s and 1830s where they collected art. [3]

Smaller bequests were made by Lord Frederick Campbell, Sir Richard Nosworthy, and others. C. R. Patterson donated his collection of 18th and 19th-century Russian icons. [3]

2020 theft

On 14 March 2020, burglars broke into the gallery by night and stole 3 paintings; Salvator Rosa's A Rocky Coast, with Soldiers Studying a Plan, Anthony van Dyck's A Soldier on Horseback , and Annibale Carracci's A Boy Drinking. [4] The estimated value of the stolen paintings is over £10 million. [5] As of November 2022, the perpetrators have not been caught, and three empty frames hang in the gallery to mark where the stolen paintings were formerly displayed. [6]

Building

The gallery is accessed inside Christ Church, Oxford, in the Canterbury Quadrangle near Oriel Square. The current building was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and was opened in 1968. After the current building opened, the gallery first became open to the public.

Related Research Articles

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Agostino Carracci was an Italian painter, printmaker, tapestry designer, and art teacher. He was, together with his brother, Annibale Carracci, and cousin, Ludovico Carracci, one of the founders of the Accademia degli Incamminati in Bologna. This teaching academy promoted the Carracci emphasized drawing from life. It promoted progressive tendencies in art and was a reaction to the Mannerist distortion of anatomy and space. The academy helped propel painters of the School of Bologna to prominence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annibale Carracci</span> Bolognese painter (1560–1609)

Annibale Carracci was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother and cousin, Annibale was one of the progenitors, if not founders of a leading strand of the Baroque style, borrowing from styles from both north and south of their native city, and aspiring for a return to classical monumentality, but adding a more vital dynamism. Painters working under Annibale at the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese would be highly influential in Roman painting for decades.

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<i>Butchers Shop</i> Paintings by Annibale Carracci, c.1583

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Holwell Carr</span>

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<i>Venus, Adonis and Cupid</i> Painting by Annibale Carracci

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<i>Adoration of the Shepherds</i> (Domenichino) Painting by Domenichino

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John Guise was a British Army officer and art collector.

<i>Pietà</i> (Annibale Carracci) Painting by Annibale Carracci in the National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples

Pietà is a c. 1600 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, the earliest surviving work by him on the subject, which was commissioned by Odoardo Farnese. It moved from Rome to Parma to Naples as part of the Farnese collection and is now in the National Museum of Capodimonte in Naples. It is one of many 16th century Bolognese paintings dedicated to the theme of the Pietà, and it is counted among Carracci's masterpieces.

<i>Assumption of the Virgin</i> (Cerasi Chapel) Painting by Annibale Carracci (Santa Maria del Popolo, Cappella Cerasi)

The Assumption of the Virgin by Annibale Carracci is the altarpiece of the famous Cerasi Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. The large panel painting was created in 1600–1601. The artwork is somewhat overshadowed by the two more famous paintings of Caravaggio on the side walls of the chapel: The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus and The Crucifixion of Saint Peter. Both painters were important in the development of Baroque art but the contrast is striking: Carracci's Virgin glows with even light and radiates harmony, while the paintings of Caravaggio are dramatically lit and foreshortened.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Sampieri frescoes</span>

The Palazzo Sampieri frescoes are a set of paintings by Annibale, Agostino and Ludovico Carracci in the Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna. They form the last surviving collection of works by the three artists.

<i>Christ and the Samaritan Woman</i> (Carracci) Painting by Annibale Carracci

Christ and the Samaritan Woman or The Woman at the Well is a 1593-1594 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, painted as part of the same scheme as the Palazzo Sampieri frescoes. Several years later he also produced a much smaller autograph copy with variations, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

<i>Madonna and Child with Saints</i> (Annibale Carracci, 1588) Painting by Annibale Carracci

Madonna and Child with Saints is a 1588 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. Signed and dated by the artist, it is also known as Madonna and Child with Saints Francis, Matthew and John the Baptist, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saint Matthew and the St Matthew Madonna.

<i>The Death of Saint Francis</i> Lost painting by Annibale Carracci

The Death of Saint Francis is the probable subject of two lost paintings by Annibale Carracci, both possibly dating to 1597-1598. One is known solely through a print and the other through a series of painted copies.

<i>Madonna and Child in Glory over the City of Bologna</i> Painting by Annibale Carracci, c.1593

Madonna and Child in Glory over the City of Bologna is a c.1593 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, also known as The Virgin and Child in the Clouds or the Madonna of Bologna. It is now in Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford.

<i>The Dead Christ Mourned</i> Painting by Annibale Carracci

The Dead Christ Mourned is an oil painting on canvas of c. 1604 by Annibale Carracci. It was in the Orleans Collection before arriving in Great Britain in 1798. In 1913 it was donated to the National Gallery, London, which describes it as "perhaps the most poignant image in [its] collection of the pietà – the lamentation over the dead Christ following his crucifixion – and one of the greatest expressions of grief in Baroque art".

<i>A Soldier on Horseback</i> C.1616 painting by Anthony van Dyck

A Soldier on Horseback is a c. 1616 painting by Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck. It was held at Christ Church Picture Gallery until its theft in March 2020. The painting's empty frame now hangs at its former location in the Gallery.

References

  1. Donald, Bruce (1 February 1997). "Picture Galleries Outside London: The Christ Church Gallery, Oxford". The Contemporary Review . 270 (1573): 1. ProQuest   1294641672 via ProQuest.
  2. Whiteley, Jon (1978). "Christ Church Picture Gallery". Oxford Art Journal. 1 (1): 2 via JSTOR.
  3. 1 2 Whitaker, Lucy; Baker, Christopher (1 May 1997). "Christ Church Picture Gallery". Apollo . 145 (423): 1 via ProQuest.
  4. Otte, Jedidajah (15 March 2020). "Historic, high-value paintings stolen from Oxford college gallery". The Guardian . Retrieved 13 November 2022.
  5. "CCTV shows Christ Church Picture Gallery theft". Oxford Mail . 16 March 2021. Retrieved 13 November 2022.
  6. Seaward, Tom (15 March 2022). "Stolen Christ Church paintings still missing - two years on from Oxford art gallery heist". Oxford Mail . Retrieved 13 November 2022.

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