You are invited to join the Library’s Curatorial Research Fellow, Dr Max Bryant, for his talk An Introduction to the Rokeby Print Collection. He explains about his work cataloguing and researching the prints collection of Archbishop Richard Robinson, 1st Baron Rokeby.
In 1794, along with his books, medals, coins and gem casts, Archbishop Robinson bequeathed c.4,500 prints to the Library which he had founded in Armagh in 1771. Known as the ‘Rokeby Collection’, the prints which date from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, range from iconic works of printmaking by Goltzius and Nanteuil, to designs for decorative arts, to ephemeral satires and illustrations. Robinson never articulated his intentions for the collection, and ordered his papers to be destroyed by his executors, leaving an ongoing question about what goals may have been expressed by the bequest. The question is compounded by the diversity of the collection, and its often surprising areas of focus.
This talk maps the range of the Rokeby Collection, and situates it within the context of the Library’s other founding collections, in order to offer a pathway to navigate one of Northern Ireland’s major public arts collections.
This event was funded by the Paul Mellon Centre.
