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Interior of the Great Exhibition Hall of 1851

Maker

(artist)
1800-1872

Title

Medium

graphite, pen and brown ink, watercolour and bodycolour on wove paper, laid down

Dimensions

Height: 23.6 cm
Width: 34.2 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.3456

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Notes

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was organised by Prince Albert, consort of the British monarch Queen Victoria, and housed in a large temporary glass house in London's Hyde Park nicknamed the Crystal Palace. It showcased a wide variety of global art and industry, exemplifying the defining advances of Victorian society at the height of the British Empire. Wingfield’s drawing highlights the splendour of the exhibition hall with a vivid colour palette and pigmented blocks of opaque watercolour. Depicted from an elevated perspective, hundreds of small figures are picked out in pen and ink to emphasise the scale of the vast building.

Provenance

D.R. Nott; purchased from him by Colnaghi (London), 1 September 1943; purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), 18 January 1944; Witt Bequest 1952

Literature

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 58

Inscriptions

Inscription: cf x [?]

Collector's mark: collector's mark of Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b)

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