Submission Guidelines

Submissions to Master Drawings can be sent via the form found here or by email to administrator@masterdrawings.org.

Please be sure to include a 100 word abstract outlining the scope of your article with your submission. Articles should be submitted in Microsoft Word format; images should be sent in separate .jpg or .tiff files, or all together as a PowerPoint file. All images should be clearly labeled and of sufficient resolution.

Those applying to the annual Ricciardi prize should include a current c.v. or resume as well as birth date. The Ricciardi prize of $5,000 is for scholars under age 40. When submitting your materials, please indicate clearly your intention to be considered for the Ricciardi prize. More information on the Ricciardi Prize can be found here.

The journal welcomes articles of varied lengths, from brief notes (500 to 1000 words, with one to three illustrations) to complete catalogues raisonnés (with up to one hundred illustrations). The average length is between 2,500 and 3,750 words, with five to twenty illustrations. Reviews should be about 1,750 words, with one to three illustrations. Letters to the Editor should be no longer than one page. Exceptions are made, in all instances, at the discretion of the editors.

All material is published in English. Translations can be arranged by the journal, but the cost may be deducted from the honorarium. For foreign quotations in English texts, provide a translation in parentheses or in an endnote.

Manuscripts are assessed by a team of readers, including members of the Editorial Board, the Editorial Advisory Board, and/or other scholars. Since most readers have other professional commitments, this process can take from six to twelve months, and authors are asked to be patient. Articles are typically published within a year of acceptance.

Once an article has been accepted for publication, the author will be asked to submit original illustrative material, if not already provided at the time of submission. Illustrations should be supplied as high-resolution .jpg or .tiff files (scanned at no less than 300 dpi, ideally from the original work of art and not from a book), color transparencies, or high-quality black-and-white photographs. Please send large digital files using a file transfer system such as WeTransfer or Dropbox. Authors are responsible for obtaining illustrations and reproduction permissions from the copyright holders.

The Editor will send an edited version of the text to the author by e-mail for approval, in the form of a .pdf file, showing the page layout with illustrations and captions in place. The review and corrections process between author and Editor typically takes place by email over a two- to four-week period before the journal goes to press.

Each author will receive one copy of the journal, a final PDF, and a modest honorarium.

Master Drawings follows the Chicago Manual of Style in most matters of style. In addition, please follow these guidelines when writing your article or review.

  • Leave one space, not two, between the period at the end of a sentence and the next sentence.
  • Please provide dates for all artists and collectors mentioned in the text, checklist(s), or footnotes.
  • For the spelling of artists names, institutional names, and so forth, see the Master Drawings cumulative Index (available online), the RKD, and ULAN (the source used for life dates unless proved incorrect).
  • For the styling of checklists or appendices, please refer to
    those published for Thomas Gainsborough in vol. 46, no. 4 (Winter 2008); Girolamo Genga in vol. 52, no. 1 (Spring 2014); or Pieter Coecke van Aelst in vol. 52, no. 3 (Autumn 2014).
  • Please include a one-sentence biographical statement at the end of your text with your professional affiliation or academic focus.
  • Italicize rather than underline book titles, titles of drawings, foreign words, and so forth.
  • Embed endnotes rather than submitting them as a separate document.
  • In general, for works of art illustrated or discussed in the text, cite the artist’s name, the title of the work, and the collection in the main text. The endnote should include inventory number (if in a public collection), media, dimensions, and a published reference or reproduction (stating whether it is in color). For example:
    [SENTENCE IN TEXT]
    …The fourth new drawing by Willem van Herp in the Louvre, Paris, Christs Entry into Jerusalem (Fig. 21),41 can also be linked to several paintings by the artist….
    [ENDNOTE]
    Inv. no. 21787. Oil, with pen and brown ink, on brown paper; 227 x 298 mm; see Frits Lugt, Muse du Louvre. Inventaire gnral des dessins des coles du nord: cole flamande, 2 vols., Paris, 1949, vol. 2, no. 1561 (as anonymous seventeenth-century Flemish), repr. (in color).
  • The support of a drawing should be mentioned only if it is NOT white or off-white paper (e.g., tracing paper, blue paper, pink prepared paper, vellum, and so forth). Inscriptions, watermarks, and provenance details may be noted if relevant to the discussion. In general, the condition of the sheet and other conservation details should not be included.
  • For reviews, provide full publication details and price after the heading, for example:
  • [BOOK]
    Per Bjurstrm, Nicola Pio as a Collector of Drawings
    Stockholm: Suecoromana II, 1995. ISBN: 978-91-7042-151-8 (hc). 292 pp., 250 illus., of which 24 in color.‚75
    [EXHIBITION CATALOGUE]
    Correggio and Parmigianino: Master Draftsmen of the Renaissance
    Exhibition catalogue by Carmen C. Bambach, Hugo Chapman, Martin Clayton, and George R. Goldner, 2000 (British Museum, London). ISBN: 978-07-1412-628-9 (hc). 192 pp., 190 illus., of which 150 in color. $59.00
  • Include a full list of captions for illustrations:
    Figure 21
    Here attributed to WILLEM VAN HERP
    Christs Entry into Jerusalem
    Paris, Muse du Louvre, Departement des Arts Graphiques
  • Bibliographical sources should be cited in full in endnotes on the first occurrence:
    [BOOK]
    Elizabeth Johns, American Genre Painting: The Politics of Everyday Life, New Haven, 1991.
    [EXHIBITION CATALOGUE]
    William W. Robinson, with an essay by Martin Royalton-Kisch, Bruegel to Rembrandt: Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, exh. cat., Cambridge, MA, Fogg Art Museum, and elsewhere, 20023, no. 24, repr. (in color).
    [JOURNAL ARTICLE]
    Eric Shanes, Turner and the Creation of his First-rate in a Few Hours: A Kind of Frenzy Apollo, 153, no. 1589, 2001, pp. 13-15 (esp. p. 14).
  • For subsequent citations, use the author-date/place-date style.
    Examples:
    Johns 1991.
    Cambridge, MA, and elsewhere 2002, p. 72, fig. 1.
    Shanes 2001, p. 14.