Collection Pop Up: Prints and Drawings

The University of Melbourne Print and Drawing Collection holds a large collection of 17-18th century engraved portraits featuring members of European royal families, aristocracy, the clergy, political statemen, and significant figures from the arts, sciences, and philosophy. Unique to this collection, are ten leather-bound albums containing some 3500 prints.

The Leeds Album is named after one of the album’s former owners, Francis Osborne (1751-99), the 5th Duke of Leeds - a British politician appointed as England’s ambassador to France in 1783, who served as foreign secretary under Prime Minister William Pitt (1759-1806). While the Leeds Album appears to have been designed to be used as a diplomatic reference book, nine large Portrait Albums containing over 3200 French, Italian, British, German, Dutch and Flemish prints have an unknown provenance and most likely originated as part of a large private British art collection in which print connoisseurship played an important role in the owner’s cultural status.

Join Sally Foster, Curator of Prints and Drawings for a rare opportunity to look through these fascinating historical collections and see up close how power, privilege and print have been used to construct international, national, and personal historical narratives.

Bookings are encouraged but all are welcome to drop in to this session.

This event is part of our Collection Pop-Up series. Look out for upcoming events in the series throughout the year.

Host or Publisher Archives and Special Collections