IMAGE CREDIT: Jean-August-Dominique Ingres Portrait of Pierre Baillot 1829; Pierre-Paul Prud’hon Fortune c1800; Edgar Degas A young girl standing – portrait of Giovanna Bellelli 1858/59. All works Prat Collection, Paris.

The Gallery presents David to Cézanne: master drawings from the Prat Collection, Paris, an exhibition of 101 French drawings spanning the course of the 19th century. This was a century when France, more than any other country, produced the finest succession of great artists: David, Ingres, Delacroix, Géricault, Millet, Daumier, Manet, Degas, Redon, Moreau, Seurat, Cézanne – all represented in this exhibition through drawings of superlative quality.

This is the first time that the collection has been seen in Australia, offering a rare opportunity to see some of the most beautiful examples of 19th-century drawing and provides an insight into the fascinating world of the collector.;

The collection is, according to Pierre Rosenberg, former director of the Louvre:

“a top-rank ensemble… [striking for the] invariably perfect quality of each drawing… Rarely has there been such a manifest, coherent determination to conceive a collection as a creation; in isolation each sheet delights and enchants; all together these drawings… are a lesson in the history of art, a non-verbal lesson, and all the more enjoyable for that…”