Gainsborough gets his way again almost 220 years after his row with the Royal Academy in 1783 Art on The Line at The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House 1780-1836 The Courtauld Institute Gallery will fellow Academicians. Visitors to Art on The present a major exhibition at Somerset House, Line will be able to appreciate the point Strand, London WC2, from 18th October 2001 Gainsborough was trying to make. His entire to 20th January 2002. The most ambitious group of fifteen royal portraits, lent by the exhibition yet staged by the Courtauld, Art on Royal Collection, will be hung precisely as The Line will recreate the golden age of British they were almost 220 years ago. art and promises to be a highlight of The The hang itself will be a key feature of the British Art Season. present exhibition. The four walls in the Great The Royal Academy was founded in 1768 Room will be arranged chronologically: 1780- Thomas Phillips (1770-1845) Lord Byron in with the backing of George III and twelve 1792, 1793-1803, 1804-1815 and 1816-1836, Albanian Dress, RA 1814, oil on canvas, years later moved into the newly completed and each wall will have a major centrepiece. 127.5 x 102cm. Government Art Collection, Strand block of Somerset House where its The first will be the stunning 1787 portrait of HM Embassy Athens. annual exhibitions took place until 1836. It is George IV as Prince of Wales by the Royal the experience of those shows that the Academy’s first President, Sir Joshua Courtauld seeks to recreate. Some 300 Royal Reynolds (1723-1792), from the collection of Academy exhibits, all of which first went on the Duke of Norfolk. The three other centre- public view at Somerset House, will be pieces will be Sir Thomas Lawrence’s (1769- brought together and presented in the manner 1830) dramatic portrait of the great actor John of the original displays. Philip Kemble as Coriolanus, RA 1798, from This unprecedented exhibition will be the Guildhall Art Gallery, John Opie’s (1761- staged in the recently restored Fine Rooms, 1807) Gil Blas taking the key from Dame designed by Sir William Chambers, with the Leonora, RA 1804, loaned by the Maidstone magnificent Great Room providing the main Museum; and Sir Martin Archer Shee’s (1769- focus as it did in the past. In this enormous and 1850) William IV, RA 1836, which belongs to elegant gallery, a dazzling display of paintings the Royal Academy of Arts. by the leading masters of the day will be hung All the major artists of the period, from frame-to-frame from floor to ceiling in a Reynolds and Gainsborough to Turner and pyramidal display that will recreate for Constable, strove to make their mark at the Print after Rowlandson and Pugin, Exhibition contemporary viewers one of the great Royal Academy and will be represented in the Room, Somerset House. Reproduced in spectacles of late Georgian London. exhibition, as will many others who are less Rudolph Ackermann (pub.) ‘The Microcosm Every year painters competed to secure the well known today. Visitors will be able to of London’, 1808, 50.6 x 89cm. University of best places for their works in the Great Room appreciate how the character of the Great London Library. as near as possible to the famous ‘Line’, a Room hang shaped the appearance of British wooden moulding that runs round the walls at painting in this period, by the famous and not- the height of the doors. Positions were so-famous, whatever the subject matter. allocated ‘on the Line’ itself for the most The predominant genre of portraiture, a important pictures, while smaller and more major feature of the British School, will be highly worked canvases were hung at eye level represented by a host of important examples, and lower beneath it; less fortunate works including depictions of royalty and suffered the fate of being ‘skied’. Because aristocracy, military heroes, politicians, artists also put their reputations ‘on the line’ society beauties, actors, writers and artists. In every time they exhibited, the decisions about addition to the fifteen Gainsborough ovals where the pictures would be hung provoked from the Royal Family visitors will also frequent and heated rows. encounter Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of In 1783 Gainsborough insisted that his Queen Charlotte from the National Gallery, fifteen portraits of the Royal Family were which met with the king’s disfavour upon its hung ‘below the Line’ where they could be exhibition in 1790. properly seen and threatened never to ‘send A famous romantic image of George another picture to the Exhibition’ unless his Gordon, Lord Byron, in Albanian dress, RA instructions were obeyed. On this occasion he 1814, by Thomas Phillips (1770-1845) will be got his way but the following year the brought back from the British Embassy in Academy refused to hang his large portrait of Athens for the exhibition, where it will be the three eldest princesses at a height insisted joined by Sir Henry Raeburn’s equally upon by the artist, which would have entailed evocative portrayal of Sir Walter Scott, RA breaking the Line. Furious at this rebuff, he 1810, from the collection of the Duke of removed all eighteen of his pictures from the Buccleuch and Queensberry. Two of the most Andres Geddes (1783-1844) Portrait of show and refused ever after to exhibit with his glamorous and charming likenesses are of the David Wilkie, RA 1816, oil on canvas, 66 x 48.2cm. Scottish National Portrait Gallery. ANTIQUES INFO - November/December 01 celebrated Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Horse of 1825 from the Royal Academy of from the collection at Chatsworth House. One Arts. On its public debut, this work was is Sir Joshua Reynolds’ image of her playing overshadowed by Danby’s spectacular with her baby daughter, RA 1786, while the Delivery of Israel out of Egypt loaned by the other is a grandiose mythological depiction by Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston. In Maria Cosway (1760-1838), shown at the the Great Room the Danby will hang next to academy four years earlier. At the other end of one of John Martin’s (1789-1854) essays in the the social scale was John Withers, one of the apocalyptic sublime Sadak in Search of the porters at Somerset House, who appears in Waters of Oblivion, RA 1812, from the John Russell’s (1745-1806) affectionate pastel Southampton Art Gallery. portrait of 1792 holding a catalogue and an Art on The Line will also include a entry ticket to ‘The Exhibition’ as it was then selection of more than seventy drawings and David Wilkie (1785-1841) Chelsea simply known. watercolours, among them Joseph Michael Pensioners Reading the Gazette of the Battle The Scottish National Portrait Gallery will Gandy’s (1771-1843) astonishing tour-de- of Waterloo, RA 1822, oil on canvas, 158 x lend the informal full-length portrait of the force of 1836, Thirteen selected Styles of 97cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, Apsley painter Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) wearing Architecture, from the Soane Museum. The House. an exotic oriental silk dressing gown, RA centre of the composition shows a five-storey 1816, by his friend Andrew Geddes (1783- building, featuring architectural styles from 1844). Wilkie himself will be represented by ancient Egypt, through classical to gothic. On his famous Chelsea Pensioners Reading the one side stones resembling Stonehenge appear Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo from Apsley beneath an edifice which is topped by a House. This caused such a sensation when it Chinese pagoda, while the other has Indian was exhibited in 1822 that it became the first and Moorish elements combined. painting at ‘The Exhibition’ to need a barrier The exhibition comes full circle with John to keep back the excited crowd. Another Constable’s (1776-1837) Cenotaph to the popular favourite will be the Victoria & Albert Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds loaned by the Museum’s Disappointed Love, RA 1821, by National Gallery. A highlight of the final the Bristol born Francis Danby (1793-1861). It Somerset House Academy exhibition in 1836, depicts the muslin-clad figure of a girl sitting this melancholic forest landscape depicts a in a forlorn pose in a dank, dark and solitary noble stag looking at a bust of the Royal setting by a stream which is carrying off the Academy’s first President, who remained a Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) The fragments of a torn letter. beacon of excellence for British artists long Royal Family, RA 1783, 15 ovals, oil on The Royal Academy and its spokesmen, after his death in 1792. canvas, each circa 59 x 55cm. The Royal led by the founding President Sir Joshua The crowds that attended ‘The Exhibition’ Collection © 2001. Her Majesty the Queen. Reynolds, promoted historical painting as the at Somerset House were enormous even by highest form of art. Among the many fine today’s standards and frequently created examples to be shown will be Reynolds’ own conditions of extreme discomfort. In 1780 Death of Dido from the Royal Collection, as there were over 61,000 visitors during the five well as Henry Fuseli’s version of the same weeks it was open, an average of more than subject from Yale Center for British Art, which 2,000 a day. The average daily number for the was painted in direct competition with Sir RA Exhibition last year was 1,922. The Joshua and shown at the same exhibition in numbers peaked at 91,827 in 1822 and never 1781. Among several historical subjects by the dropped below 70,000 after 1820, each visitor Academy’s second President, the American- paying a shilling plus the cost of the catalogue.