Old Master Collecting

Raphael was the artist most admired by Georgian collectors; Old Master paintings were judged against this single yard-stick. The tradition of Raphael was understood to have divided into three main currents. His draughtsmanship and ideal beauty inspired the work of Italian seventeenth-century artists, like Guido Reni and Carlo Maratta. His dignified and expressive story-telling can be seen in the work of Eustache Le Sueur and French landscape painting. His painterly qualities – use of colour and atmospheric light – lived on in the work of his Flemish admirers, Rubens and van Dyck, who also learned from Venetian Renaissance painting.