Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

A. L. Blakeslee Drawings, Accession #10665, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The collection was donated to the Fiske-Kimball Fine Arts Library by Mr. A. L. Blakeslee and was transferred to the Manuscripts Department on November 1, 1985.

Scope and Content

This collection is comprised of 206 drawings, ca. 1913, 1929 and 1938, n.d., by A. L. Blakeslee, chiefly studies of Greek architectural details. The collection has been arranged into three oversized folders.

The first folder contains 110 items, most of which are studies of Greek columns and capitals. Many dimensional and proportional analyses are included as are some pediment and cornice studies. There are two temple plans: Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina and Apollo Epicurias at Phigeleia, as well as four unlabelled plans. A 1938 perspective drawing of Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, signed by [Ruel] S. Walker, is present with these items.

The second folder contains seventy-eight items in two major groupings. The first contains details of ornament trim and structural proportions of various temples. These include seven drawings in ink of the Parthenon and twenty-nine studies on columns and moulding details. Also present in this group are horse and rider drawings from a pediment, studies of the Erectheum (?), a study of a console from a chest in the Duomo di Cremona, one and first floor plans from the 1929 National Better Homes Architectural competition, a printed map of the Mediterranean Sea, and miscellaneous plans of Greek temples.

In the third folder are thirty items, and as in the second folder these fall into two major groupings: plans, and ornamental details. Most are of the Parthenon including illustrations of the battle scenes in the metopes and pediment. Trim outlines from the temple of Artemis at Eleusis, plans of the Parthenon and the Propylaea at Athens, and, a mounted ink-and-pencil map of the Mediterranean comprise the remainder of the items in this folder.