WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND.- Te Papa’s Chief Executive, Dr Seddon Bennington, announced today that the exhibition Holbein to Hockney: Drawings from the Royal Collection will be on display at Te Papa from 23 April to 24 July 2005.

Following two years of discussion with Windsor Castle, and with the approval of Her Majesty The Queen, Holbein to Hockney presents a unique opportunity for Te Papa to showcase an exhibition of seventy-six works representing a selection of the most significant drawings from the Royal Collection.

The exhibition is currently on display at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. Te Papa is the only venue for the exhibition outside Great Britain. After the exhibition closes at Te Papa, it will be shown in The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Place.

Highlights of the exhibition include works by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci; Michelangelo; Raphael; Albrecht Dūrer; Annibale Carracci; Canaletto; Thomas Rowlandson; Sir David Wilkie; and Sir Edwin Landseer.

Other treasures include Hans Holbein’s chalk studies of Sir Thomas More and Cicely Heron, which are preparatory works for Holbein’s lost portrait of More and his family.

One of the most recent additions to the collection is a pencil portrait of Lord Rothschild by David Hockney, which entered the Royal Collection in 2003.

Influenced by the personal tastes of monarch’s who have bought or commissioned works, the Royal Collection contains one of the world’s greatest collections of drawings assembled over the last five centuries. From sketches to finished presentation works, the exhibition covers every type of drawing practised in Europe since the Renaissance, including compositions for paintings, studies from the model, portraits, landscapes and observations from nature.