Poussin to Cézanne: French Drawings from the Prat Collection

The collection of drawings assembled by Louis-Antoine Prat of Paris over the last three decades is one of the finest private collections of its kind in the world, highlighting some three centuries of work by French artists active before 1900 and including drawings by great masters as well as superb examples by lesser known artists.

Selected by Dr. Pierre Rosenberg, former director of the Louvre and guest curator for this project, the one hundred drawings will reflect the panorama of French draftsmanship beginning with the late Mannerist style of Jacques Callot, extending through the work of eighteenth-century masters Watteau, Boucher, and Fragonard, and such early nineteenth-century figures as Ingres and Delacroix, and will conclude with the flowering of Impressionism as seen in works on paper by Manet, Degas, and Cézanne. Included are landscapes and portraits, red chalk and graphite pencil, meticulously finished drawings and brilliant sketches.

The collection, begun by Louis-Antoine and Veronique Prat in 1974, contains more than 200 drawings. This exhibition will include many of its finest examples and recent additions to the collection that have not been shown before.

Itinerary

• Los Angeles County Museum of Art: November 7, 2004–January 16, 2005
• Toledo Museum of Art: February 5–April 3, 2005
• Philadelphia Museum of Art: July 16–September 25, 2005