The story
Tucked inside an Oxford college, Christ Church, is a picture gallery most visitors to the city never find. Its core arrived in 1765, when General John Guise, an old member of the college, left it his collection of Old Master paintings and, more importantly, drawings. It was one of the first such bequests to any college, and it turned a teaching college into a keeper of serious art.
The strength is the drawings. The cabinet holds sheets by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer and the Carracci, shown in rotation because paper cannot take constant light. The paintings include Italian panels going back to the 14th century.
The gallery lives in a discreet modern building of the 1960s inside the college walls, reached through the same quads students cross to lectures, which is part of why it stays one of the quieter places anywhere to stand in front of a Michelangelo drawing.
