1750
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
Design for a painting within an architectural setting depicting Ptolemy I commissioning the Library at Alexandria is a 1750 by James Thornhill, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This drawing is a design for a grand painted scene. It shows Ptolemy I ordering the building of the Library at Alexandria. Thornhill used pen and ink, then watery washes to make the figures pop off the page. He even drew in a scale ruler at the bottom to plan the final painting’s size. Look up the Victoria and Albert Museum to see more of Thornhill’s work.
The drawing is executed in pen and ink with wash, serving as a preparatory design for a painting that would occupy an architectural space, depicting Ptolemy I commissioning the Library at Alexandria. Thornhill includes architectural elements such as a chimneypiece and a scale in feet along the bottom, while the verso features a sketch of an urn above a pediment for the Clarendon Building at Oxford. The inscription referencing Sir Thomas Hanmer suggests the design may have been intended for him, though the painting’s location remains unknown. The work is one of several known designs by…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Sir James Thornhill was an English painter of historical subjects working in the Italian baroque tradition.
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