Interior of the British Institution, 52 Pall Mall by A. C. Pugin, after Thomas Rowlandson (hand-coloured etching and aquatint, published by Rudolf Ackermann, 1808).
Interior of the National Gallery, when it was at 100 Pall Mall by Frederick Mackenzie (watercolour, 1834). The National Gallery and the British Institution were the two modern institutions in Pall Mall founded to bring art and its study to the public. Both encouraged copyists to work in their rooms.
The Festival upon the Opening of the Vintage of Macon by J. M. W. Turner (oil on canvas, 1803).
Noli me Tangere by Titian (oil on canvas, c.1514). These two paintings, the Titian being less than a quarter the size of the Turner, were sold for about the same price: £330 and 300 guineas respectively, in 1802 and 1804.
Waiting for the Times by Benjamin Robert Haydon (oil on canvas, 1831).
William Brande and Michael Faraday precipitating Prussian Blue, attributed to George Reinagle (oil on panel, 1827). Haydon’s painting reflects impatience, as one man waits for another to finish reading the day’s Times in a clubroom. Below, two chemists, likely to be William Brande and his young assistant Michael Faraday, patiently precipitate Prussian Blue, in a colourful experiment that brings immediate and satisfying results. Both paintings include remarkable still-life details.
Thomas Coutts by Sir Francis Chantrey (marble, 1827), Coutts Bank, London.
The Chantrey Wall at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Some of the original plaster preliminary models for Chantrey’s many busts, presented to the University of Oxford by the artist’s widow in 1842, were redisplayed here in 2009.
James Watt’s workshop at Handsworth, Birmingham, as he left it at his death in 1819 by Jonathan Pratt (1889). Watt’s sculpture-copying machine is seen centre background. His bust by Francis Chantrey is prominent at centre right. Watt’s and Chantrey’s workshop practices illustrate the increasing industrialization of sculpture production in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century.
Whalers (Boiling Blubber) Entangled in Flaw Ice, Endeavouring to Extricate Themselves by J. M. W. Turner (oil on canvas, 1846). Composed initially as a painting of the arrival of King Louis-Philippe in Portsmouth Harbour in 1844, Turner rapidly reconfigured it as a south Atlantic scene in an unsuccessful attempt to attract a buyer interested in whaling subjects.
Isabella by John Everett Millais (oil on canvas, 1848–49). Against her family’s wish, Isabella falls in love with the apprentice Lorenzo. When Isabella’s furious brothers kill Lorenzo, she cuts off his head and buries it in a pot of basil which she waters with her tears. The story derives from Boccaccio, retold in a poem by Keats.
The Random Shot by Edwin Landseer (oil on canvas, 1848).
The Random Shot by Charles Lewis, after Edwin Landseer (engraving, 1851). This engraving of Landseer’s celebrated painting was the subject of a persistent commercial argument between artist, engraver, and the dealers Ernest Gambart and Henry Graves.
Ackermann’s premises, The Repository of Arts, in the Strand, London (handcol oured etching and aquatint by A. C. Pugin, published by Rudolf Ackermann, 1809). Ackermann’s shop was busy, successful and fashionable, supplying prints and drawings, decorative objects, books and artists’ materials.
Interior of Benjamin Godfrey Windus’ library and gallery at Tottenham by John Scarlett Davis (watercolour, 1835). Collectors such as Windus contributed richly to the business of art in the nineteenth century, and helped to maintain the buoyancy of the art market’s many levels.
Titianus redivivus [Titian reborn]; -or- the seven-wise-men consulting the new Venetian oracle, - a Scene in ye Academic Grove. No 1 by James Gillray (engraving, 1797). A lampoon mocking senior Royal Academicians who were duped into buying a dubious recipe for Venetian colour.
Exhibition Stare-Case by Thomas Rowlandson (watercolour, c.1811). This narrow staircase is still in use as the principal access to the Courtauld Institute Gallery, Somerset House.
The Louvre, or the National Gallery of France. No. 100, Pall Mall, or the National Gallery of England, published by Joseph Hogarth (lithograph, c.1832). Published as political pressure was forcing the government to speed the construction of a new building for the National Gallery. The print compares the grand sweep of the Louvre in Paris with Britain’s National Gallery, then a dilapidated house in Pall Mall.
Ruins of Fonthill Abbey by William Westall, after John Buckler (lithograph, 1826). Inscribed: ‘The Tower fell 21st. December 1825. / “And thus this unsubstantial Fabrik falling left a sad wreck behind!”’
Pages from Turner’s ‘Academy Auditing’ sketchbook, c.1824. Figures written out by Turner from Royal Academy accounts are followed in strong contrast by pages of free-flowing drawings of sexual activity (opposite page).
Entrance to the Adelphi Wharf by Théodore Géricault (lithograph, 1821, printed by Charles Hullmandel). One of a set of twelve lithographs of London life that Géricault made across the months in which his painting The Raft of the Medusa was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly.
Paintings being delivered for selection to the Royal Academy, Trafalgar Square (wood engraving, from the Illustrated London News, 1866). The building, now occupied entirely by the National Gallery, accommodated the Royal Academy on its east side from 1837 to 1868. The popularity and demand for the annual exhibition is self-evident. On the left is a wagon expressly fitted out to transport paintings.
Mr Fuseli’s Painting Room at Somerset House by an unknown artist (watercolour, c.1825). To the centre of the room is a set of steps to aid the diminutive artist (he was 5 feet 2 inches tall) in reaching the top of the canvas.
Portrait of J. M. W. Turner by Charles Turner (stipple engraving, published in 1852). An elegant evocation of Turner’s studio which signals the artist’s erudition through the folio volumes, and his creative and physical energy, through the maulstick, palette and paints, and hat and umbrella.
The Artist’s Studio by J. M. W. Turner (sepia drawing, c.1808). Possibly a lampoon on the pretensions and industry of artists. Turner has written on the reverse: ‘Pleased with his work he views it o’er and o’er / And finds fresh Beauties never seen before’.
Richard Cosway RA by William Daniell, after George Dance (soft ground engraving, published 1811). Cosway’s sharp eye drew characterful details from his sitters, and led him also into a complicated way of life as a philanderer.
‘Caleb curious – the Witty Wine Merchant’: portrait of Caleb Whitefoord by Isaac Cruikshank (hand-coloured etching, 1792). Whitefoord, an influential figure in London, was also a successful wine merchant, and owned a remarkable collection of erotica.
Self Portrait by William Etty (oil on paper, 1823). The speed and bravura with which Etty would paint the nude was remarked upon with admiration by fellow artists.
Study of a standing nude by William Etty (oil, 1820–30s). Studies of such naturalistic detail as this would not be shown in public.
John Boydell, Engraver by Valentine Green, after Josiah Boydell (engraving, 1772). A forthright portrait of a major player in the art business of the late eighteenth century.
Rudolf Ackermann, attributed to Francois Nicholas Mouchet (oil on canvas, 1810–14). Ackermann’s highly successful art business had branches as far afield as Central and South America.
William Seguier, attributed to John Jackson (oil on card, c.1805). Art dealer and picture cleaner of dubious integrity. William Beckford referred to him as ‘that execrable Seguier’.
Sebastian Grandi by John Opie (oil on panel, 1806). Tucked into Grandi’s jacket is the silver medal awarded to him by the Society of Arts in 1806.
Sir John Julius Angerstein, after Sir Thomas Lawrence (mezzotint, c.1815). Angerstein ensured that on his death his house and art collection would be bought by the nation as the foundation for the National Gallery.
Maecenas, in pursuit of the Fine Arts: scene, Pall Mall; - a Frosty Morning by James Gillray (hand-coloured etching, 1808). The Marquess of Stafford is seen walking past the rooms of the auctioneer James Christie.
Study for ‘Patrons and Lovers of Art’ by Pieter Christoffel Wonder (oil on canvas, 1826–1830). Collectors, including William Holwell Carr and George Watson Taylor, are together admiring Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, just acquired by the National Gallery.
Joseph Gillott (engraving). The fortune Gillott made from his Birmingham pen manufactory enabled him to build up a peerless collection of Dutch, French and particularly British nineteenth-century painting.
Captain Francis Fowke by Thomas Woolner (gilt bronze bust, 1866). A former soldier and military engineer who became a pioneer architect of steel-framed exhibition galleries.
The steel-framed picture galleries in the South Kensington Museum, later the V&A, designed by Francis Fowke, 1857.