Anyone who has tried drawing will appreciate the difficulties of characterising drapery. Whether its softness, smoothness, sheen, texture or bulk, or the fall of drapes over an imagined figure, it poses one of the great challenges in art. It’s been long studied, in European art at least since the beginnings of Greek sculpture, and many drawings of drapery come to us from the Italian Renaissance.

Over 30 old master drawings exploring this topic, all from the vast Guise collection at Christ Church, are in a new exhibition. Subjects range from the column-like cloaked figures, supposedly ‘saints’, in an early sheet dating from 1400, to a 17th-century Florentine youth scurrying along hitching up his skirts, a 15th-century man fastening his hose, an adoring angel, plus others seeming to dance (though in fact they’re supporting something). There is also a drawing of a sleeve by Leonardo da Vinci, plus two from his follower Figino. Three works are attributed to Fra Bartolommeo. They include a statue of a goddess, a rapid sketch of an apostle, and a lovely silverpoint showing folds of cloth draped across the lap of the Virgin. This was formerly attributed to Raffaello – no surprise, for it’s beautiful – but although his name is written at the base of the picture, Jacqueline Thalmann, the gallery’s curator, points out attributions change over the years.

One portrait of a pilgrim from the studio of Pisanello is a strange composition. All the effort has gone into the head of this grim-looking, sideways-glancing man, while only a swirling slash of a single fold cuts majestically across the lower portion of the drawing.

I loved the studies by Giovanni Ambrogio Figino. One of the sheets by this Milanese artist, apparently popular among the nobility for his portraits, shows him taking four different approaches to the fall of drapery over a left arm. So, it’s as if you can see him thinking through his subject. I found myself wondering which of the four he settled on for the final work. Was it the one with generous rumpled fabric pulled up above the elbow, or the more stately version?

The other Figino explores the drapery enfolding a seated figure. You need to look closely at this one. Softly shaded in red chalk with some black, and heightened with white, its lines are hatched in different densities to convey the curves that fall around the faintest outline of a leg. This virtual absence of body revealed only by the lie of the cloth gives it an abstract lyrical quality that fits well with the title the show. The Poetry of Draped Figures is on until February 7.