The Geological Lecture Room, Oxford: Dr. William Buckland Lecturing on February 15, 1823

The Geological Lecture Room, Oxford: Dr. William Buckland Lecturing on February 15, 1823

Nathaniel Whittock

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dr. William Buckland, paleontologist and cleric, appears in this print delivering a lecture at Oxford on February 15, 1823. The interior was located in the Ashmoleon Museum, with specimens hanging on the walls and the lecture illustrated with drawings and prints supported on racks and easels. That same year Buckland resigned his college fellowship to become Canon of Christ Church, but continued to give his annual course of lectures on geology and minerology. To accomodate the growing collections of specimens, they were moved between 1830–32 into the adjacent, more spacious, Clarendon building. In 1836, Buckland would publish his "Bridgewater Treatise," intended to prove "the power, wisdom and goodness of God as manifested in the Creation."

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Geological Lecture Room, Oxford: Dr. William Buckland Lecturing on February 15, 1823The Geological Lecture Room, Oxford: Dr. William Buckland Lecturing on February 15, 1823The Geological Lecture Room, Oxford: Dr. William Buckland Lecturing on February 15, 1823The Geological Lecture Room, Oxford: Dr. William Buckland Lecturing on February 15, 1823The Geological Lecture Room, Oxford: Dr. William Buckland Lecturing on February 15, 1823

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.