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Sir Robert Witt in his library

Maker

(artist)
1876-1953

Title

Sir Robert Witt in his library

Date of Production

1919

Medium

graphite on thick wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 36.4 cm
Width: 51.4 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.723

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords





Label Text

This drawing provided the frontispiece for the Catalogue of Painters and Draughtsmen represented in the Library of Reproductions of Pictures and Drawings formed by Robert and Mary Witt, privately printed in 1920. In it, Witt explained his aim 'to form as complete a collection of painters and their individual works as possible', and that the intention behind his method of classification (by artist and subject matter) was to provide 'such a systematic method of arrangement as a dictionary affords'. The approach remains the same today but the material has grown from 150,000 reproductions covering the work of 8,000 individual artists in 1920 to the Witt Library's current 1.8 million images covering 75,000 painters.

Provenance

apparently commissioned from the artist by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), circa 1919 (£30); Witt Bequest 1952

Literature

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 6

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower right corner of drawing, graphite, signed and dated by the artist: "1919 / Muirhead Bone"’ ; lower right corner of margin, graphite: “19 ½ x 25 ¾”.

Collector's mark: none.

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