Liberty to the Imagination: Drawings from the Eveillard Gift

The Morgan celebrates the 100th year of its founding with a series of exhibitions devoted to promised gifts to the museum, including twenty-eight drawings from the holdings of New York–based collectors Elizabeth and Jean-Marie Eveillard. The selection comprises drawings from the seventeenth to the twentieth century that exemplify the sense of wonder that underlies the Eveillards’ collecting practice. Describing it, Betty Eveillard has quoted the eighteenth-century French philosopher, Denis Diderot: “Perhaps we find sketches so attractive only because, being somewhat indeterminate, they allow more liberty to our imagination.” The exhibition includes a study for Rembrandt’s first masterpiece; Greuze’s virtuoso depiction of a young cook made for his friend Jean-Georges Wille; Delacroix’s intimate portrait of Jenny, his confidante and caretaker; and a striking watercolor landscape by Cézanne. Also in the gift are significant sheets by major artists such as Rubens, Guercino, Jordaens, Watteau, Géricault, Constable, Degas, Renoir, Seurat, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rodin, Vuillard, Bonnard, and Gris, including many rarely seen drawings. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.