The chairs were founded concurrently in 1869 by a bequest from the art collector and philanthropist Felix Slade, with studentships also created at University College London.
The studentships allowed for the creation of the Slade School of Art, now part of University College London, whose Director holds the Slade Professorship.
The chair at Oxford is a visiting professorship, with duties restricted to a series of eight public lectures per year, on the "History, Theory, and Practice of the Fine Arts",[1] to which four seminars have been added from 2011.
[2] The bequest was also indirectly responsible for the foundation of the Ruskin School of Drawing in Oxford, which was financed by the first Oxford professor, John Ruskin, who announced his intention in his inaugural lecture "to the general dismay of his listeners".
The lectures are often subsequently published in book version.