Small treasures from the Frick Collection

The Frick Collection’s Small Treasures exhibition presents an intimate sample of ten works, mostly on paper, from the Frick Collection in New York. The selection includes an engraving, a watercolor, four drawings and four oil sketches, spanning four centuries of artistic production, from Melancolia I of 1514, one of Alberto Durero’s most intriguing engravings, to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s 1843 oil sketch, entitled The Arch of Constantine and the Roman Forum. Also, a drawing by Claudio de Lorena illustrating one of his classic 17th-century landscapes is also present in the exhibition; the meticulous oil cloud studies of the 18th-century British painter, John Constable, and a watercolor with annotations by Eugenie Delacroix illustrating his journey to Morocco in 1832. This interesting group of objects, each unique in its own right, shows a variety of schools, periods, techniques and subjects. While the landscapes of Ticiano, Claude, Constable and Corot present a brief overview of the traditions of this genre, the public also enjoy curious examples of inventive imagination through the drawings of Goya, Fuseli and Liotard. The small treasures that make up the exhibition are not usually in sight in the Frick, so the exhibition revealed an unknown aspect of this large New York collection.