Among the events organised to celebrate its Bicentenary, the Museo del Prado is presenting The master of paper. Spanish drawing books of the 17^th to 19^th centuries. The exhibition offers a reflection on the use of drawing books as an essential teaching tool for learning to draw and their evolution in Europe, including Spain.

Featuring more than 100 examples, the majority from the Prado’s own Library - which is one of the most important in this field thanks to the acquisition of Juan Bordes’s collection of drawing books in addition to the examples from the Madrazo and Cervelló libraries and other individual acquisitions - the exhibition offers a survey of these repertoires of prints based on the human figure which revolutionised the system of teaching drawing in artists’ workshops and Fine Arts academies as well as for amateurs at home.

Drawing books, also known as manuals of principles, first appeared in Italy in the early years of the 17^th century and rapidly spread across Europe. Their innovative aspect was the use of prints as the means to compile different models which allowed apprentices and students to learn to draw without the direct presence and supervision of the master. The human body became the principal subject of study, and to achieve the maximum degree of correctness a method was devised that fragmented it into multiple different elements. This allowed students to progress from the particular to the general, from the simple to the complex and from outline to volume. Drawing books started with the parts of the face - eyes, mouth and nose - then moved on to the arms, hands, legs and feet and concluded with the study of complete figures. This new educational tool completely revolutionised the system of teaching drawing and became an important and influential resource capable of transmitting a method and specific prototypes as well as the particular style of some artists.

Due to the material of which they are made (paper) and the fact that they were constantly in use in artists’ studios, academies and private homes, few examples of these books have survived to the present day. In addition, their status as teaching material has meant that their artistic merit has been insufficiently appreciated and they have thus frequently passed unnoticed even though they were often the work of renowned painters, sculptors and printmakers.

The acquisition of Juan Bordes’s collection of drawing books, in addition to the examples from the Madrazo library, that of José María Cervelló and individual acquisitions by the Museum, has created a very significant holding that makes the Library of the Prado one of the most important in the world in this field. As a result, this exhibition aims to introduce visitors to these holdings as the culmination of a broader project that has involved the methodical cataloguing, study and digitalisation of the drawing books housed in the Prado and which on its completion will allow researchers around the world to access this holding from the digital library. Within this collaborative project the work undertaken by the departments of paper restoration, publication and the photographic archive have been particularly important.