How did you conceive of the display of Old Master drawings in the Lower Gallery?

I wanted to juxtapose two types of hangings in one gallery. On one wall is Peter Paul Rubens's Saint Gregory Nazianzus Subduing Heresy, which is big and dynamic enough to hold the wall itself. Its placement invites the close examination and immediacy that we expect from modern hangings. On the other wall is a medallion of drawings and its hanging is based on the symmetry and selection found in such print albums as the Spencer Albums that were compiled in early eighteenth-century Paris. (The Spencer Albums, some of which are now at Harvard, have thousands of prints carefully arranged and mounted on double-page spreads of fine paper, bound into volumes.)

This makes sense since collectors also pasted drawings into albums from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Those collectors usually arranged their drawings systematically, often first by the artist's name, followed by that artist's work grouped by subject. So, you might have an album of Raphael drawings of the Madonna and Child, followed by his images of saints. As early as the sixteenth century, some collectors used their albums to illustrate the development of the arts by arranging their drawings chronologically. But oftentimes the desire for symmetry overrode the imposed logic in these types of arrangements, and the final placement became more personal, whimsical, and unscientific. Was there a hierarchy at play in your selection and placement of these drawings?

My placement falls into the last category that you mention, where the desire for symmetry drove the presentation. I didn't want to think about art historical themes or categories. I wanted to display drawings of the highest quality possible. As Harvard is known for having some of the best Old Master drawings in the United States, by such important artists as Pontormo and Agostino Carracci, I was in a fortunate position to fulfill this goal. I began my selection with the large drawing of Apollo attributed to Guido Reni. Apart from the fact that only a few drawings of this size from the seventeenth century remain, I was also thinking about the installation itself. As the centerpiece, this drawing allowed me to move outwardly, with each side matching the other in the number of framed drawings. At the two ends of this arrangement, I placed the large matching horizontal drawings by Giandomenico Tiepolo. They helped to contain the hanging visually, like bookends.

Why did you select so many Italian drawings when Harvard also has great drawings by artists of other nationalities in its collections?

I discovered that few Dutch and German drawings sat well with the large central drawing attributed to Guido Reni. By selecting this Italian work first, I ended up choosing more works from the same tradition of gesture and pose. Through such groupings, the drawings could talk to each other. See how the main figure in the Pontormo drawing extends a hand toward Luca Cambiaso's Nymph and Putti Riding on a Dolphin, which in turn gestures towards the large Apollo. This arrangement allows the eye to move from one drawing to the next and makes for a visually dynamic experience for the viewer. I was interested less in the purpose or style of each drawing and more in how the drawings related visually to each other.