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The Age of Exhibitions

The reign of Queen Victoria saw a great increase in the popularity of exhibitions of all kinds. The Queen and Prince Albert attended the annual shows of the Royal Academy and made numerous purchases. Frederic Leighton’s Cimabue’s Madonna, exhibited in 1855, was the most spectacular, and resulted from a desire to help a promising artist at the beginning of his career.

The scale of some works exhibited at the Society of Painters in Watercolour, including two examples by the royal favourite Edward Corbould, suggests a conscious ambition to rival the work of painters in oil.
 
No paintings were displayed in the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851, but its successor and imitator in Paris in 1855 included a Fine Arts pavilion, at which Meissonier’s La Rixe was judged the star. These exhibitions promoted the application of art and design to industrial production, especially in metalwork, ceramics and glass, a subject of particular interest to Prince Albert.
 

Wilhelm Hensel (1794-1861)

Miriam's Song of Praise

Johann Heinrich Ludwig Möller (1814-1885)

Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844).

Johann Heinrich Ludwig Möller (1814-1885)

Peter Asmus Möller (d. 1858)

Sir Edwin Landseer (1803-73)

Isaac van Amburgh and his Animals

Sir Edwin Landseer (1803-73)

Eos

David Roberts (1796-1864)

A View in Cairo

John Martin (1789-1854)

The Eve of the Deluge

Daniel Maclise (1806-70)

A Scene from 'Undine'

William Dyce (1806-64)

The Madonna and Child

Johann Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869)

Religion glorified by the Fine Arts

William Edward Frost (1810-77)

Una among the Fauns and Wood Nymphs

William Edward Frost (1810-77)

The Disarming of Cupid

George Cruikshank (1792-1878)

The Disturber Detected

Eduard Jakob von Steinle (1810-86)

Saint Luke painting the Virgin

Oswald Achenbach (1827-1905)

Morning

Oswald Achenbach (1827-1905)

Evening

Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-73)

Florinda

William Powell Frith (1819-1909)

Ramsgate Sands (Life at the Seaside)

William Charles Thomas Dobson (1817-98)

The Almsdeeds of Dorcas

Joseph Vincent Gibson (active c. 1856-98)

The Cottage Home

Sir Joseph Noël Paton (1821-1901)

Home (The Return from the Crimea)

John Phillip (1817-67)

The Letter-Writer of Seville

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815-91)

La Rixe (The Brawl)

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793-1865)

The Grandmother's Birthday

Edward Henry Corbould (1815-1905)

The Woman taken in Adultery

Edward Henry Corbould (1815-1905)

Rot Käppchen or Red Riding Hood

Edward Henry Corbould (1815-1905)

Dinah Morris preaching on the common

Hippolyte Paul Delaroche (1797-1856)

Napoleon crossing the Alps, May 1800

After Ludwig Michael von Schwanthaler (1802-48)

Twelve historical rulers of Bavaria

Richard James Wyatt (1799-1850)

Penelope with the bow of Ulysses

William Theed (1804-91)

Narcissus

Edgar George Papworth (1809-66)

Richard II and Bolingbroke entering London

Christian Daniel Rauch (1777-1857)

Victory

Edward William Wyon (1811-55)

The eagle slayer

Charles Cordier (1827-1905)

Vénus africaine

Henri Joseph François, Baron de Triqueti (1804-74)

Sappho and Cupid

Guillaume Geefs (1805-83)

Paul et Virginie

Guillaume Geefs (1805-83)

Le lion amoureux

Baron Carlo Marochetti (1805-67)

Richard I, Coeur de Lion

Baron Carlo Marochetti (1805-67)

Princess Gouramma of Coorg

Baron Carlo Marochetti (1805-67)

Maharaja Dalip Singh

Carl Johann Steinhäuser (1813-79)

Friedrich Ruckert