The King's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse
17 October 2025 1 March 2026
The Renaissance period saw a dramatic transformation in the way that artists worked, with a new-found appreciation for creativity pushing artistic boundaries. Drawing became central to this development, evolving from an essential tool of workshop practice to an exciting art form in its own right.
This exhibition brings together a wide range of drawings from this revolutionary artistic period, including 45 drawings never exhibited in Scotland before.
Exploring the diversity and accomplishment of drawing across Italy between 1450 and 1600, the exhibition will feature around 80 works by over 50 artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian alongside lesser-known artists, all drawn from the Royal Collection, which holds one of the world’s greatest collections of Italian Renaissance drawings.
The drawing is a study for the group of the Graces sprinkling a libation over the married couple in the Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche, one of two large scenes frescoed in the vault of the garden loggia of Agostino Chigi's villa on the banks of the TibRaphael (1483-1520)
The Three Graces c.1517-18
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
A design for a dragon costume c.1517-18
Michelangelo Buonarroti (Caprese 1475-Rome 1564)
The Virgin and Child with the young St John c.1532
Federico Barocci (Urbino c. 1535-Urbino 1612)
The head of a young woman c.1582
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
The head of a youth c.1510
Parmigianino (Parma 1503-Casalmaggiore 1540)
Studies of dogs c.1522-23
Bartolomeo Passarotti (1529-92)
St Jerome c. 1580
Alessandro Allori (Florence 1535-Florence 1607)
Fortitude, Prudence and Vigilance c.1578
