J.W. Waterhouse

Art in the Age of Queen Victoria

Treasures from the Royal Academy of Arts Permanent Collection.

For most of the reign of Queen Victoria, the Royal Academy of Arts led the British art world. Two of its Directors were also Directors of the recently established National Gallery, and, in 1869, the Academy moved to its current home at Burlington House in London's Piccadilly. Here the public crowded the Annual Summer Exhibition and the Winter Loan Exhibitions of work by Old Masters and British artists including Sir Edwin Landseer, known for his animal paintings, the Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir John Everett Millais and High Victorian Classicists Sir Edward Poynter and Frederic, Lord Leighton.

The works of art deposited with the Royal Academy by each Member elected to full Academician status present a vivid record of contemporary taste. This exhibition offers the opportunity to view nearly 80 Victorian paintings and sculptures from the Permanent Collection and celebrates the artists and the subjects so lauded in their day. These range from idealised nudes and scenes from mythology, biblical subjects and genre scenes illustrating contemporary moral issues, to costume portraits, the search for the exotic and landscapes and seascapes. The artists who created these works include Edwin Austin Abbey, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, William Powell Frith, David Roberts and George Frederic Watts.

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