Not content with a ‘History of the World in 100 objects’, the British Museum also gives us the history of Italian Renaissance drawings in 100 drawings — and in just over 100 years, between 1400 and 1510. The dates leak a little into the 16th century rather than keeping to a ‘neat’ century, says curator Hugo Chapman, because he wanted to close the exhibition with early drawings by Raphael and Michelangelo and give a sense of the beginnings of the High Renaissance. It is necessarily a fabulous exhibition: the two masters in the title roughly framing the period in focus, and the pick of two of the best collections of Italian Renaissance drawings in the world — a collaboration between the Uffizi in Florence and the British Museum, 50 drawings from each. Included is work from Fra Angelico, Jacopo and Gentile Bellini, Botticelli, Carpaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Filippo Lippi, Mantegna, Michelangelo, Titian and Verrocchio. Its premise is simple: to show that in 15th-century Italy a fundamental shift took place in the use of preparatory drawings — that the use of paper set the imagination of 15th-century artists free. The exhibition’s starting point, 1400, marks the beginning of the Renaissance, thus the development of mathematically-based perspective, increased interest in classical and human forms, and more naturalistic focus. With drawings so much part of our visual culture it’s odd to think that up till the 1400s they were not common. The new abundance of relatively inexpensive paper unlocked creativity. Organised chronologically and regionally around Florence and Venice, the exhibition emphasises the importance of drawing in this period, explains paper-making and ‘the nuts and bolts’ of drawing, and shows underdrawings revealed by infrared reflectography and other non-invasive scientific techniques that give insights into the creative thinking behind an artwork. A line of studies shows artists beginning to plan their work on paper, and some stages of the drawing process: Perugino (a pen study for a lost fresco), Filippo Lippi (exploring spatial recession), Signorelli (a squared study for some figures in an Adoration scene), Boltraffio (a silverpoint drapery study), and Pollaiuolo (a cartoon for the Head of Faith, 1470 — the earliest cartoon for a surviving painting). During the 1400s artists began to make drawings as works of art in their own right, and collectors began appreciating them.

Examples of presentation drawings include Mantegna’s bleak allegory of human folly, Virtus Combusta (Virtue in flames) showing a blind woman being lead to the precipice by Lust, in the presence of Deceit and ass-eared Folly, while lumpen Ignorance sits with Avarice and Ingratitude off to the side; and Leonardo’s silverpoint Bust of a Warrior from the 1470s. Ten drawings by Leonardo da Vinci reflect his importance in this period, including the one I’ll remember above all: a pen and ink landscape signed and dated August 5, 1473, it is a sun-baked panorama that apparently has similarities to his home town of Vinci in the Arno valley. It is his first documented work — and the earliest landscape drawing in European art.

The exhibition explores the differences between Florentine and Venetian artists (for instance, the former favouring outline, volume and movement, as in drawings by Verrocchio, Credi and Leonardo; the latter more atmospheric, tonal drawing compositions like Titian’s plump-faced young woman at the end of the exhibition — one of few surviving Titian drawings). The drawing used on the exhibition publicity, Verrochio’s Head of a woman, 1475, is displayed showing both sides of the sheet, so you can get a feeling of him turning the sheet over, moving from the speedily drawn portrait of a young woman on one side, to the same pensive woman but now with elaborate hairstyle on the other. Nearby for comparison are Credi and Leonardo versions of a Head of a woman in similar poses. There is so much else here that deserves attention: Bellini’s album, Pisanello’s macabre drawing of hanged men, Uccello’s exacting perspective Study of a Chalice, Raphael’s cartoon for St. George next to the final oil painting, two cheetahs (pictured) from a 1400 model book with goats on the verso . . . But this leads me to my one gripe. There is simply too much to see. All these drawings need — merit — close inspection, and there are 100. That’s a lot to see on one visit. It’s a pity it’s a paying exhibition. If it weren’t, we could, and most of us would dearly love to, return again and again. I also could question the use of the Round Reading Room, though the appeal of staging this exhibition beneath the Italianate dome is clear. But this is too good a show to end on anything less than a positive. It’s a marvel, a one-off, and at the British Museum until July 25, thereafter travelling to the Uffizi.