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The Prints and Drawings Study Room

The Prints and Drawings Study Room houses our fine collection of prints, drawings and watercolours, comprising more than 1,000 works and six centuries of the draughtsman’s and printmaker’s arts.

The study room is open to researchers and the general public by appointment only.

Due to essential building improvement works, the Prints and Drawings Study Room is currently closed to the public until summer 2024.

For research enquires please email: collections@barber.org.uk

Images inside the coin and print study room at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham.

We have outstanding drawings in our collection by varied artists such as Tess Jaray, Fra Bartolommeo, Rembrandt van Rijn, JMW Turner, Edgar Degas and Gwen John.

Prints include exceptional works by Albrecht Dürer, Francisco Goya, Italian and Flemish Renaissance masters and 19th-century and 20th-century artists from Pablo Picasso and Elizabeth Frink to Käthe Kollwitz.

Many of our prints and drawings can be viewed on our website, or on the University's Online Collections. We are still in the process of digitising our full collection of works on paper, so please bear with us.

A rotating selection of works on paper are displayed in our dedicated Print Bays (located in the Green and Beige galleries) – typically there are six print displays a year.

Explore our prints and drawings online:

Pietro Berretini da Cortona (1596-1669)

A Wooded River Landscape Rome, about 1650 Black chalk, brush and grey ink, grey wash 283 x 425 mm   Cortona was, along with Bernini, a presiding genius of the Roman Baroque. Excelling as a painter, architect and decorator, he also executed a number of landscape drawings, often as pure diversions. One of the finest … Read more

John Brett (1831-1902)

Study of Warwick Castle (‘The White Waterlily’) Warwick, 1860 Watercolour on paper 254 x 355 mm Early on in his career, John Brett, the leading Pre-Raphaelite landscape artist, visited the West Midlands where he produced this view of Warwick Castle. This watercolour study is, along with an early sketch, the only record of a now … Read more

Hieronymus Cock (around 1510 – 1570)

Apollo and Daphne Antwerp, 1558 Etching Plate: 230 x 312 mm Mount: 405 x 556 mm Apollo and Daphne were among Cupid’s targets. Apollo, instilled with a great passion, pursues a terrified Daphne, who seeks divine assistance. Here, she is in the process of metamorphosing into a laurel tree: limbs sprouting leaves, foot merging with … Read more

Ennemond-Alexandre Petitot (1727-1801)

Suite de Vases: Page Four Parma, Italy 1764 Etching on laid paper Plate: 220 x 165 mm; paper: 420 x 280 mm; mount: 630 x 520 mm A set of 32 engravings, with 3 printed folios. Series purchased in 1961 for £25 (No.61.4/4) ShareTweetSharePin

Arthur Melville (1855-1904)

The Lawn Tennis Party at Marcus Glasgow, 1889 Watercolour and pencil heightened with body colour, on paper 760 x 940 x 34 mm Originally conceived in the late summer of 1886, Melville’s fresh and spontaneous watercolour shows the family home of John Robertson (a friend of the artist), at Marcus in north-east Scotland.  Robertson himself … Read more

after Rubens, Peter Paul (1577-1640)

Portrait of Helena Fourment? Antwerp, 1630-1635 Drawing with black and red chalk heightened with white 561 x 351 mm Both the former attribution to Rubens and the identification of the sitter as Helena Fourment are doubtful, and compromised by poor condition. The traditional identification of the sitter as the artist’s second wife stems from the … Read more

Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685)

The child and the doll 1679 Etching 104 x 93 mm A child sits on its mother’s lap and reaches for a doll while the parents fondly observe. Dolls were particularly associated with girls as they were thought to gravitate naturally towards their calling as mother and housewife even in early play. This simple family … Read more

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

The Lime Burner London, 1859, published 1871 Etching with drypoint Plate: 25 x 18 cm; mount: 55.6 x 40.5 cm This is one of Sixteen Etchings of Scenes on the Thames which Whistler completed by 1861. They resulted from a campaign of drawing along the river in which the artist sought to document its everyday … Read more

Pierre Étienne Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867)

Oaks Among Boulders Barbizon, 1861 Etching Plate: 13.4 x 21 cm; paper: 30 x 40 cm; mount: 40.5 x 55.6 cm  This etching was made from Rousseau’s painting La Chene de Roches and published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Rousseau depicts the heart of the forest untouched by human intervention. Rousseau’s desire to represent nature … Read more

Giovanni Migliara (1785-1837)

An Architectural Capriccio 1829 Pencil and watercolour 180 x 234 mm Migliara was a scenery painter who turned to small-scale works after 1810, owing to illness. His precise, jewel-like technique and theatrical settings found much favour with patrons in his native Milan and further afield. His works are extremely rare in Britain. As the title … Read more

Crispin de Passe the Younger (c.1597 – c.1670)

L’instruction du roy en l’exercice de monter à cheval – The King rides in an enclosure bearing his lance in an upright position Paris, 1629 Engraving Mount 515 x 629 mm Purchased 1956 (No.56.17/10) ShareTweetSharePin

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778)

The Palazzo di Montecitorio, Rome Rome, 1760-78 Etching with line-engraving 400 x 611 mm The imposing 16th-century exterior of the Palazzo di Montecitorio stretches into the hazy distance. Ghostly outlines of buildings and the column of Marcus Aurelius (193 AD) shimmer in the background. The combination of classical sculpture, 16th-century architecture and the 18th century … Read more

Crispin de Passe the Younger (c.1597 – c.1670)

L’instruction du roy en l’exercice de monter à cheval – The King performs a levade in the stables Paris, 1629 Engraving Plate 333 x 424 mm; mount 515 x 629 mm Purchased 1956 (No.56.17/6) ShareTweetSharePin

Paul Emile Colin (1867-1949)

Memories of the Past (Souvenirs d’autrefois) French, after 1902 Colour Woodcut 294 x 381 mm Woodcuts first appeared in the 8th century when Buddhist monks in Japan and China used them to reproduce devotional texts. However, they only emerged in Europe at the start of the 15th century, and by the end of the Renaissance … Read more

Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617)

The companions of Cadmus devoured by the dragon Haarlem, 1588 Engraving 253 X 318 MM Goltzius worked with the artist, Cornelius van Haarlem, at the ‘Academy’ of Harlem, who made the painting (now at the National Gallery London) from which this engraving derives.  Ripping claws, fangs gouging deep into flesh, scattered heads and shredded bodies … Read more

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770)

Zephyrus and Flora Venice, about 1750 Pen, brown wash and black chalk on paper 23.9 x 33 cm Tiepelo made this drawing as a study for the principal figures in the ceiling fresco he painted for the Room of Mirrors in the Palazzo Labia in Venice. He also produced a small oil sketch of the … Read more

Aegidius Sadeler II (1570-1629)

Daedalus & Icarus Etching 234 x 304 mm In a scene based on the classical story of Daedalus and Icarus and their escape from Crete, Daedalus gestures with despair as his son Icarus falls from the sky. The ploughman looks up while the seated peasants laugh and point. This story was often associated with the … Read more

Augustus John (1878-1961)

Nude Girl Standing London or Paris, about 1906 Etching 19 x 11.5 cm  A young naked woman stands with her knee upon a bed. Her pensive expression and downturned eyes suggest intimacy and naturalness. The loose, hastily etched lines highlight the mass and unevenness of her body rather than idealising her figure. The model is … Read more

Carlo Maratti (1625-1713)

Study for the Head of St Charles Borromeo Rome, 1658-90 Red chalk heightened with white on blue paper 36.1 x 27.9 cm This drawing is a study for the head of the figure of Saint Carlo Borromeo in the High Altarpiece of the Church of  S. Carlo al Corso, Rome. This study represents Saint Carlo … Read more

Luigi Scaramuccia (1616-1680)

The Crowing with Thorns Italian, mid 1600s Engraving on laid handmade paper 52.5 x 35 cm Purchased 2000 (No. 2000.2) ShareTweetSharePin

Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-1682)

The cottage on the hill Amsterdam, about 1660 Etching Plate: 195 x 281 mm Frame: 584 x 737 mm A small wooden house perches atop a steep hill, engulfed by the dense surrounding forest. The limbs of the trees twist and reach into the distance, entwined together to create a sense of movement and life. … Read more

John Leech (1817-1864)

Hunting Incidents of ‘The Noble Science’: A Friendly Mount, Plate 4 1865 Lithograph 445 x 595 mm Purchased 1944 (No.44.6/3) ShareTweetSharePin

Sir William Orpen (1878-1931)

A Nude Girl Seated on a Bed London, 1899 Pen and ink, brown wash on paper 27.6 x 21.4 cm This is one of a number of studies that Orpen made of Emily Scobel, a model at the Slade School of Art where he was studying at this date. The drawings culminated in an oil … Read more

attributed to Paolo Cailiari (1528-1588)

Meekness Venice, 1575-7 Pen and brown wash heightened with bodycolour on blue paper 18.9 x 31.0 cm Related to the ceiling paintings of the same subject by Veronese in the Sala del Colegio of the Doge’s Palace, Venice. Purchased 1937 (No. 37.2) ShareTweetSharePin

Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878)

Interior of an Inn France, 1861 Etching Plate: 120 x 150 mm; paper: 270 x 223 mm; mount: 405 x 555 mm This interior shows the corridor of an inn lined with pairs of shoes and a broom, dramatically lit by a lamp. Daubigny also depicted this scene in daylight. The observation of a scene … Read more

Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945)

Help Russia Berlin, 1921 Lithograph A suffering and emaciated man is embraced by two pairs of tough-looking hands. Designed as a propaganda poster during the Russian Civil War, this lithograph demonstrates the artist’s sensibility to the social conditions of the working class. The print medium serves as a useful tool for spreading pacifist and political … Read more

Stefano della Bella (1610-1664)

Les cinqs morts – Death carrying a woman Italy, 1648 Etching with engraving 190 x 151 mm Purchased 1954 (No.55.5/4) ShareTweetSharePin

Hubert Robert (1733-1808)

Study of a Tree with a Figure Paris, about 1780 Red chalk, over squaring in black chalk, on paper 385 x 524 mm Robert was a garden designer as well as a painter and trees formed an important part of his landscape subjects. He was also a prolific draughtsman, invariably using red chalk, a medium … Read more

Pierre Drevet (1663-1738), after Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1763)

Portrait of Robert de Cotte Paris, 1722 Engraving on laid paper 566 x 390 mm This print reproduces Hyacinthe Rigaud’s portrait of Robert de Cotte (1656-1735), one of the most significant French architects of his time. Cotte is portrayed as a self-assured figure, dressed in richly embroidered fabrics that indicate his wealth. He is shown … Read more

HONORÉ DAUMIER (1808-1879)

Et pendant ce temps-là ils continuent à affirmer qu’elle ne s’est jamais mieux portée Paris, 1872 Lithograph 283 x 275 mm Daumier was a Republican, but there is no sense of triumph in this depiction of the Monarchy as a withered corpse in an open coffin. The Franco-Prussian War (1871-2) and resultant turmoil created horrifying living … Read more

The Prints and Drawing Study Room was created with the financial support of the DCMS/Wolfson Museums Improvement Fund.