Prints & drawings cabinet
The Department of Drawings and Prints of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia is one of the leading institutions for the study of Venetian graphic art. Its collections comprise approximately 8,000 historic drawings and more than 60,000 prints dating from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century.
The holdings are particularly rich in works by Venetian masters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while also including earlier examples by artists such as Ercole de‘ Roberti, Bonifacio de‘ Pitati, Jacopo Bassano and Jacopo Palma il Giovane. The print collection documents virtually all the great masters, from Renaissance Dutch and German engravers to the major series of prints published in eighteenth-century Venice by artists including Canaletto, Domenico Lovisa, Michele Marieschi, Pietro Monaco and Anton Maria Zanetti.
The origins of the collection date back to 1830, with the bequest of Teodoro Correr. Among his most significant acquisitions were the group of drawings by Guardi and the graphic works of Pietro Longhi. Throughout the nineteenth century, the collection was further enriched by a series of important donations and acquisitions, particularly strengthening its holdings of eighteenth-century Venetian art.
In 1841, Bartolomeo Gamba donated an album containing works by Sebastiano Ricci, Canaletto, Giambattista Pittoni and Giuseppe Bernardino Bison. His example was followed by other prominent figures in nineteenth-century Venetian cultural life, including Domenico Zoppetti (1852), Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna (1865), Girolamo Ascanio Molin (1885) and the painter Giuseppe Lorenzo Gatteri. Thanks to these benefactors, the collection now includes drawings by Antonio Canova, Gaspare Diziani, Pietro Antonio and Francesco Novelli, Giambattista Piazzetta, and both Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo.
During the twentieth century, the collection continued to expand through acquisitions of works by artists who had previously been absent or only sparsely represented. In 1934, through the generosity of Vittorio Cini, drawings by Francesco Fontebasso entered the collection. Fabio Mauroner donated the exceptional group of drawings by Luca Carlevarijs, while Antonio Morassi presented the institution with the only drawing by Bernardo Bellotto in its holdings. In 1967, the entire Riccardo Musatti Collection, comprising more than 200 drawings, was acquired. Later, in 1986, the Municipality of Venice purchased the album of drawings by Palma il Giovane, formerly owned by Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder.
The collections continue to grow today through the generosity of patrons and the targeted acquisition of works that fill gaps in the holdings.
The Department also preserves an important collection of more than 1,000 architectural drawings by architects including Vincenzo Scamozzi, Antonio Gaspari, Baldassare Longhena, Giacomo Quarenghi and Giannantonio Selva. This represents the most significant surviving corpus for the study of Venetian architecture from the Baroque to the Neoclassical period.
The collection also includes the largest known group of drawings and prints devoted to Venetian regatta boats from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. A further specialist section is dedicated to nineteenth-century theatrical design, with works by Tranquillo Orsi, Pietro and Giuseppe Bertoja, and Francesco Bagnara.
Finally, the Department holds an important body of works by nineteenth-century Venetian artists, including substantial collections by Giuseppe Borsato, Marco Moro, Luigi Querena, Ippolito Caffi, Giovanni Pividor, Eugenio Bosa and Giacomo Favretto.
The cartographic collection (Class XLIV) is maintained separately from the Department’s holdings and may be consulted in the library of the Museo Correr.
Catalogues
The online catalogue, currently undergoing continuous expansion, is available at: www.archiviodellacomunicazione.it
The printed catalogue of the Department’s drawings collection, organised by artist and currently published up to the letter R, was compiled by Terisio Pignatti (Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 1980–1996). Specialist studies of the collections of stage designs by Francesco Bagnara (1996) and Giuseppe and Pietro Bertoja (1998, 2013) were prepared by Maria Ida Biggi. These are complemented by Paolo Ticozzi’s studies (1975, 1977) on prints after works by Paolo Veronese, and by Maria Agnese Chiari’s publications on prints after Titian (1982) and Tintoretto (1994).
The collections and their catalogues may be consulted, by appointment, in the dedicated study room at Ca‘ Rezzonico – Museum of 18th-Century Venice, Dorsoduro 3136 (mezzanine floor).
Visitors are permitted to take non-professional photographs of the material using their own devices for study purposes. Requests for high-resolution images or permission to publish material should be submitted to the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia Photographic Archive using the dedicated online application form.
Contacts
Tel. 041 2410100
Mail: disegniestampe@fmcvenezia.it
Photographic Archive
Historic images, by-appointment consultation, and services for scholars and researchers.
