An exibition of some sixty drawings recently acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago. The drawings included a wide range of works from many countries and periods, including superb examples by such well-known masters as Annibale Carracci, Hubert Robert, Gainsborough, Gericault, Monet, Redon, and Renoir. Among them were also two exceptionally fine landscapes by Claude Lorrain, a brooding, dark self-portrait by Joseph Wright of Derby, and an early Delacroix figure study which might almost be taken for one by Degas. A romantic landscape by Victor Hugo is wreathed with inscriptions by the writer-artist. Of equal interest were many marvelous and unusual drawings by artists who may be less famous but who are highly gifted as draughtsmen. In this category one might note a complacent camel by Cornelius Saftleven, a fantastic subterranean mausoleum by Pietro Gonzaga, Eugéne Lami's compressed panorama of the Ceremonies for the Return of the Ashes of Napoleon, and other rare, sometimes poetic, images, such as Lovers in an Arbour by H. G. Ibels.
Eugène Delacroix, Crouching Woman, 1827. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL