Nineteenth-century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L.Winthrop Collection, Harvard University Christopher Riopelle

In the early decades of the 20th century, Grenville L. Winthrop, a New Yorker and Harvard graduate, assembled a remarkable collection of paintings and drawings by French, British and American artists of the 19th century. They include the finest group of works by Ingres outside France and major canvasses and sheets by David, Gericault, Delacroix, Moreau and Renoir. British works, beginning with Blake and Flaxman, include important Pre-Raphaelite paintings by Burne-Jones, Holman Hunt and Rossetti, and a suite of masterful drawings by Beardsley. The Americans examples include Whistler, Sargent and Winslow Homer. Upon his death in 1942, Winthrop's collection passed to Harvard University Art Museums in Cambridge, MA. Published to accompany the National Gallery exhibition "A Private Passion: Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University" (25th June - 14th September 2003) this book features 35 of the finest paintings and drawings in the collection. Christopher Riopelle provides an introduction to the collection and offers some unexpected insights into the history and background of the featured works. The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lyon and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Christopher Riopelle is Curator of Nineteenth-Century Painting at the National Gallery, London. His previous titles include A Brush with Nature: The Gere Collection of Landscape Oil Sketches (1999), now revised (ISBN 1 85709 998 2, [pound]25.00*).