This elegantly designed, fully illustrated volume presents more than two centuries of exquisite drawings by Spanish artists, featuring works by Ribera, Murillo, and Goya, among others, from public and private collections in the New York area. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Frick Collection, the book–with contributions by Jonathan Brown, Rober Lubar and Pierre Rosenberg–reveals the character, range, and depth of the Spanish tradition of drawing from the early seventeenth to the early nineteenth century.

These extraordinary works share a distinctiveness of technique, subject, and mood that represent a specifically “Spanish manner.” Although Italian Renaissance principles were practiced by Spanish draftsmen, the greatest of them also employed techniques of dazzling idiosyncrasy: lines dart and dash freely over the paper as if the hand of the artist could not be restrained, and energetic splotches of ink wash enrich forms. Many of the themes favored by these artists also distinguish these works from their Italian counterparts.

Lisa A. Banner holds a PhD in History of Art from New York University. She has written extensively on Spanish Baroque art and has contributed to exhibition catalogs, symposia, and conferences throughout the world. She has published The Religious Patronage of the Duke of Lerma, 1598–1621 (2009) and co-curated the exhibition The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya (New York, 2010–11).

Jonathan Brown (1939–2022) is regarded as a leading specialist on Spanish painting of the Golden Age and on the Spanish master Diego Velázquez. He wrote extensively on Hispanic Art of the early modern period and his books include A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV (1980, with J.H. Elliott), Velázquez, Painter and Courtier (1986), Painting in Spain, 1500–1700 (1991), Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Early Modern Europe (1995), and Velázquez. The Technique of Genius (1998, with C. Garrido). In 2006 he co-curated with Susan G. Galassi the exhibition Goya’s Last Works (New York). Brown was Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, until his retirement in 2017.

Andrew Schulz, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Oregon, received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1996. His research focuses on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Spanish art, with particular interests in the Spanish Enlightenment, the art of Francisco de Goya, and the legacy of Islamic art in Spain.

Reva Wolf is Professor of Art History at the State University of New York at Paltz. She teaches and writes about art of the eighteenth century to the present and is the author of Goya and the satirical print in England and on the Continent, 1730 to 1850 (1991) and Andy Warhol, Poetry, and Gossip in the 1960s (1997). Her recent work focuses on methodology, art and humor, the reception of art, and issues of appropriation and authenticity. She has held fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard University, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.