Master Art

Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over a pencil underdrawing. Laid down on a 19th century mount washed brown, with framing lines in brown ink. 
485 x 327 mm. (19 1/8 x 13 1/4 in.) [sheet] 597 x 442 mm. (23 1/2 x 17 3/8 in.) [including mount]

The present sheet can be likened to an ink and wash drawing of the imaginary perspectival interior of a classical building by Gustav Hetsch, signed and dated 1820, in the collection of the Kunstakademiets Bibliotek in Copenhagen. Intended as a design for a pantheon or temple devoted to famous men, the drawing was the artist's reception piece for admission into the Kunstakademie in Copenhagen, to which he was accepted in June 1820.

A number of other large-scale drawings of architectural fantasies by Hetsch, bearing dates between 1822 and 1840, are also in the collection of the Kunstakademiets Bibliotek. Another comparable drawing by the artist, depicting the interior of the Roman church of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, is in the Art Institute of Chicago.