The collection of drawings at the
Getty Museum was started in 1981 with the purchase of Rembrandt’s Nude Woman with a Snake and has steadily
expanded since then, so that now, at the turn of the new millennium, it stands
at more than six hundred drawings and is, sheet for sheet, one of the best
anywhere.

The Getty goal is to create from
the finest examples a collection of the different Western European schools of
drawing before 1900, with special emphasis on the work of the most important
and accomplished draftsmen. The collection now contains superb examples of the
work of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Dürer, Rembrandt, Claude
Lorraine, Watteau, Gainsborough, David, Millet, Manet, Van Gogh, and Degas.

This is the fourth in the series
of catalogues describing the drawings in the Getty Museum. Most of the drawings
discussed in the present volume were chosen for the collection in the period of
1994 to 1998 and include examples from the Italian, German, Dutch and Flemish,
French, Spanish, and British schools. Also included are several gifts from
private collectors, which mark the start of a tradition that, it is hoped, will
continue in the future. The catalogue entries for these new acquisitions are
organized first by national school and then by artist. The book also includes a
bibliography and indexes of artists, former owners, related drawings, prints,
and works in other media.