Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Art about and at Oxford

Robert Parkinson
The Radcliffe Observatory from the Southwest
1959
drawing (ink and wash on paper)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford


Mary Hogarth
Interior of the Radcliffe Observatory
1927
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

William Nicholson
Queen's College, Oxford
ca. 1904-1906
drawing (charcoal and watercolor on paper)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Paul Ayshford Methuen
Queen's College Library
1953
watercolor and ink on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

John Buckler
Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford
1815
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Charles Ernest Cundall
Encaenia (Sheldonian Theatre)
1946
oil on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Leonard Russell Squirrell
Oxford from Wytham
1944
watercolor and ink on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Peter Greenham
Oxford from the Radcliffe Camera
ca. 1951
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Muirhead Bone
Examination Schools, High Street, Oxford
1931
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Alfred Daniels
Hertford College from the South
1973
watercolor and gouache on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Francis Towne
Worcester College, Oxford
1813
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Francis Towne
Christ Church from Merton Field
1813
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Frederick Mackenzie
Merton College Chapel from the Grove
ca. 1829-30
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Walter Tyrwhitt
Roof of New College Hall
1909
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Walter Tyrwhitt
Canterbury Quad, St John's College
ca. 1910
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Charles Wild
Radcliffe Library, Oxford
1813
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

John Piper
Main Quad, University College
1968
watercolor and ink on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

    And therefore also to judge of men's works which were written at distant times of their lives, to make them out as genuine or spurious according as they containe repugnant or congruent conceptions, and to expect constancy of opinions in former and after writings, is to forget the difference of men and students allowable for their successive enquiries; to presume on improving heads an early stand in knowledge; nor to commend but disparage good Authors, whom they suppose in their yonger or middle yeares to have sett up their non ultra in knowledge. A constant tenour of discourse or strict uniformitie of sense and notions from the same elder and junior penns is only expectable from improficient heads; wherin supinitie, credulity, obstinacy, or self conceit affordeth no accretion. 

    The many men that every man is by the great varietie of tempers, inclinations, opinions, and apprehensions unto the age of man, makes a kind of metempsychosis before death, and makes good that Pythagoricall opinion in one generation and the same habitation of flesh. Time brings not only frequent repentancie in actions butt iterated resipiscency in opinions, thoughts and notions. Even of what I now apprehend I have no settled assurance. These are my present thoughts this night in England; what they will prove tomorrow when I arise toward China,* I may bee yet to determine. 

– Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) 

*Which may bee sayd in some latitude upon the diurnall motion of the earth from west to east.