Interior and exterior architectural structures offered Nicholson a compelling starting point from which to develop the composition and balance of his drawings. However, as he would note, such a subject did bring with it an added challenge: ‘the problem with [drawing] things which are already a work of art is to be able to take the necessary physical liberties with them & at the same time take no liberties at all with the spirit, in a kind of re-creation’. 1975 (Boccaccio) was made in May 1975 when Ben Nicholson and his partner Angela Verren-Taunt were visiting Tuscany and Umbria. It depicts the interior of a house in the village of Certaldo, alleged to have been the final abode of the famous fourteenth-century poet Boccaccio. A year earlier in May 1974, Nicholson executed another drawing depicting the same interior and staircase during a visit to the same house (fig. 1). The paper which Nicholson used for his drawings was always prepared in the studio before making a trip. He washed individual pieces with areas of watercolour, without any regard for what might later be depicted on the sheet. From the 1960s, he routinely started shaping the paper, creating irregular rectangles and sheets with rounded sides. A great many sheets, washed in different ways and cut in different shapes, were then carried around in a satchel. Once a subject or a view was decided upon, Nicholson cast about in the satchel to find a piece of paper that suited the immediate needs of his drawing. This well-practiced method ensured a certain richness of quality and often resulted in unexpected, enlivening contrasts between the subtle watercolour wash and the line drawing which followed it.