British Institution - Heyday of The Institution

Heyday of The Institution

The Old Masters exhibitions were mainly loans from the members. The first was in 1813, entirely consisting of 143 works by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the next year 53 William Hogarths, 73 Gainsboroughs, 85 Richard Wilsons and 12 by Zoffany were shown. In 1815 for the first time the Institution showed foreign art - Dutch and Flemish - and upset many British artists by a preface to the catalogue, implying in a rather too patronizing manner that British artists had a lot to learn from them. Robert Smirke is generally accepted as the anonymous author of a series of satirical "Catalogues Raisonnés" published in 1815–16, which savagely lampooned the Directors, the great and the good of British art patronage. William Hazlitt rejoined with a long piece of laboured sarcasm in defence of the Institution. At this time the Old Masters were exhibited in the winter, and the living artists in the summer. In 1816 Italian and Spanish works were shown, including two of the Raphael Cartoons and several important works from the Orleans Collection; most of the consortium who had split this up were Directors of the Institution.

The foreign schools rotated until 1825 when only selected loaned works by living British artists were shown, and for the next two years only works from the Royal Collection, essentially the new collections of the Prince Regent, by now King George IV. In 1830 all 91 works were by the recently dead Sir Thomas Lawrence, including all the pictures from the Waterloo Gallery at Windsor Castle; his nieces received the £3,000 of ticket sales. In 1838 the living French artist Paul Delaroche was treated as an Old Master to allow exhibition of two of his large works on British history including Charles I Insulted by Cromwell's Soldiers. In 1848 the designation was extended in the other direction with a group of early masters including Giotto and Jan van Eyck (attributions that perhaps would not be maintained today). This was still somewhat bold for the time. The 1851 show, coinciding with vast numbers of tourists flocking to the Great Exhibition, had 120 pictures from 47 collections, intended to show the cream of British collections. The selection gives an interesting view of taste at the mid-century.

Later, by 1832 as reported by Passavant, the Institution's routine was to hold a spring exhibition of paintings by contemporary artists, available for purchase, followed by a summer exhibition of old masters. By the time of an 1835 visit by Thomas Carlyle, the gallery had become known colloquially as the Pall Mall Picture Galleries or the British Gallery, and was still among the popular society haunts. The Times called it "the favourite lounge of the nobility and gentry", and artists grumbled that it imposed aristocratic tastes on the viewing public. Tourist guides in the 1840s reported that the spring exhibition ran from the start of February to the first week of May, closing a week after the Royal Academy exhibition opened, and the old masters exhibition from the first week of June to the end of August, with some works remaining in the galleries for a month or more for artists to copy:

"Here are two exhibitions in the course of every year - one of living artists, in the Spring, and one of old masters, in the Summer. The latter exhibition is one of the most interesting sights of the London season to the lovers of the Fine Arts. Admission, 1s. Observe - Bas-relief of Shakespeare, between Poetry and Painting, on the front of the building, (cost 500 guineas), and a Mourning Achilles, in the hall of the Institution - both by Thomas Banks, R.A." from Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850

By 1850 the Queen was Patroness, and the Directors a new generation of Dukes, Marquesses and Earls, with a couple of bankers (Hope and Baring) and the ever-present Samuel Rogers. Despite the apparently flourishing state of the Institution, when the term of the 1805 lease expired in 1867 it was dissolved; according to the The Art Journal the modern exhibitions had been declining in popularity, but not the Old Masters. Even so they reported that 150 pictures were sold from the modern exhibition in 1865, and 147 in 1864. A chance to buy the freehold in 1846 for £10,000 was missed, and it would have cost £25,000 by the 1860s. The remaining funds were used to establish scholarships for artists, and the Royal Academy took over the holding of loan exhibitions of Old Masters. When the gallery building was demolished during 1868–1869, the Banks sculpture from the building's façade was moved to Stratford-upon-Avon and re-erected in New Place Garden.