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, students and the general public by appointment only.
For research enquires or to make an appointment please email: [email protected]
Please note: the Barber's galleries are closed for a major building improvement project.
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:
Hendrik Goudt (1585-1630)
Hendrik Goudt The Flight into Egypt 1613 363 x 414 mm Purchased 1955 (No. 55.4)
Claude Mellan (1598-1688)
Claude Mellan Biblia sacra – Frontpiece 1642 Engraving 280 x 230 mm After Nicolas Poussin. Inscribed verso lower right: V. Poliakoff 1920 701, and lower left: 306. Purchased 2005 (No.2005.1)
Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685)
Adriaen van Ostade The Child and the Doll Haarlem, before 1679 Pen and ink and watercolour Sheet 110 x 92 mm; mount 557 x 408 mm In this gentle scene a family relaxes in the street, the mother and daughter playing happily with a doll. The quasi-domestic setting, including draped linen, cooking pot and toy … Read more
Claude Lorrain (1604/5-1682)
Claude Lorrain Sunrise Rome, 1634 Etching Paper: 12.9 x 20 cm; mount: 40.5 x 56 cm This marine scene bustles with activity as figures gesticulate, exchange glances and huddle in groups. The sun, which faintly be seen on the horizon, floods the picture with light and blurs the distant mountains. Opposite the triumphal Arch of … Read more
Luigi Scaramuccia (1616-1680)
Luigi Scaramuccia The Crowing with Thorns Italian, mid 1600s Engraving on laid handmade paper 52.5 x 35 cm Purchased 2000 (No. 2000.2)
Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677)
Wenceslaus Hollar The Thames Below Westminster Pier London, about 1638 Pen and brown ink 14.6 x 40.1 cm This is an example of Hollar’s comparatively rare drawings as opposed to his etchings of English scenery. This view is taken looking upstream. The buildings are marked as ‘Lambeth House’, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, … Read more
Crispin de Passe the Younger (c.1597 – c.1670)
Crispin de Passe the Younger L’instruction du roy en l’exercice de monter à cheval – Two posts linked by a decorative cord, with a saddle and a whip Paris, 1629 Engraving Plate 322 x 416 mm; mount 515 x 629 mm Purchased 1956 (No.56.17/4)
Tess Jaray (b.1937)
Untitled Study London, 1964 Graphite on paper 373 x 300 mm Due to licencing rules, the Barber is currently unable to reproduce images of this work for our website. If you wish to view this work, you can make an appointment to see it in the Prints and Drawings Study Room. Jaray’s untitled studies seemingly offer … Read more
Owen McSwiny (1684-1754)
Owen McSwiny Tombeaux des princes, grands capitaines et autre hommes illustres qui ont fleuri dans la Grande Bretagne 1741 Engraving Paper: 651 x 423 mm; mount: 812 x 608 mm Eight engravings from the series publishes by McSwiny in 1741. Engraved by N. Dorigny, I. Cars, L. Desplaces, N.D. de Beauvais, B. Lepicie and J.P. … Read more
Schelte Adamsz Bolswert (c. 1586-1659), after Peter Paul Rubens
Schelte Adamsz Bolswert after Peter Paul Rubens The Lion Hunt Flanders, late 1620s Engraving with etching 428 x 596 mm This violent and dramatic hunting scene, after a painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), shows horses, men and wild beasts masterfully entwined, the range of facial expressions and contorted poses portraying the fury and fierce determination … Read more
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)
Joseph Mallord William Turner The Lake of Thun London, 1808 Etching with mezzotint 18.3 x 29.2 cm Etched by JMW Turner and engraved by Charles Turner (no relation), this print was the third plate of the artist’s Liber Studorium, a series of landscape prints intended to advertise his range. The production of which caused a … Read more
Francisco de Goya (1746-1828)
Francisco de Goya Who will Bell the Cat? (Quien se pondrá el casabel al gato?) Spain, about 1816-24 Etching with aquatint and drypoint Plate 3 from Los Proverbios. Purchased 1959 (No. 59.10)
Cristofano Robetta (1462 – after 1534)
Cristofano Robetta Allegory of the power of love Florence, about 1500-20 Engraving 302 x 280 mm In this complex but beguiling allegory of the vanity of carnal love, the nudity of the figures is integral to the subject. In the centre is a male ‘captive of love’ embracing a female personification of Voluptas (Pleasure). On … Read more
Andrea Andreani (c. 1560-1623)
Andrea Andreani Hercules and the Nemean Lion Mantua/Rome, about 1520 Chiaroscuro woodcut 250 x 188 mm Hercules is perhaps the best known classical hero. Killing the Nemean Lion was the first of his Twelve Labours, as series of challenges which atoned for the murder of his wife and sons, and demonstrated the triumph of Good … Read more
Edmond Xavier Kapp (1890-1978)
Edmond Xavier Kapp Pablo Picasso Paris, 1938 Lithograph 553 x 443 mm Purchased 1969 (No.69.9/243)
British School, 19th century
British School, 19th century Portrait of Frederick Walker (1840-1875) Red chalk heightened with white on buff paper 496 x 612 mm The artist is standing in his studio, and is seen at three-quarter length, a brush in his right hand, his head turned three-quarters to the right. Behind him, on an easel, is a picture. … Read more
John Brett (1831-1902)
John Brett 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 … Read more
William Walcot (1874-1943)
William Walcot The Barber Institute of Fine Arts 1938 Watercolour and bodycolour 730 x 1355 mm This work was commissioned by the Henry Barber Trust in September 1938 to mark the completion of the building. Commissioned by the Henry Barber Trust, 1938 (No.38.15)
John Leech (1817-1864)
John Leech Hunting Incidents of ‘The Noble Science’: The Noble Science, Plate 5 1865 Lithograph 445 x 595 mm Purchased 1944 (No.44.6/4)
Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
Eugène Delacroix A Wild Horse France, 1828 Lithograph on chine collé The energy and beauty of an untamed horse is captured perfectly by Delacroix. The versatile technique of lithography accurately describes the texture of the horse’s coat and the momentary nature of this scene shown through the animal’s frightened response to a gust of wind. … Read more
The Prints and Drawing Study Room was created with the financial support of the DCMS/Wolfson Museums Improvement Fund.