The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1814 was the annual Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy of Arts. It was held at Somerset House in London from 2 May to 9 July 1814. [1]
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The exhibition coincided with the visit of the Allied sovereigns' visit to England following victory in the Napoleonic Wars. Prominent European leaders allied to Britain for celebrations as a prelude to the Congress of Vienna. The Tsar of Russia Alexander I was amongst those who visited the Academy exhibition. [2]
As was common during the era, portrait paintings mass up a larger proportion of the artworks submitted. Notable amongst the works on display were two pictures by Thomas Phillips featuring the poet Lord Byron. Lord Byron in Albanian Dress made reference to the foreign travels that has inspired his breakthrough work Childe Harold's Pilgrimage , while the writer also featured in the more conventional Portrait of Lord Byron . The leading Regency era portraitist Thomas Lawrence displayed a number of paintings featuring political or society figures. Amongst them was a portrait of the British Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh who had been one of the architects of the coalition that defeated Napoleon. During the Allied visit Lawrence produced his Portrait of Marshal Blucher which he displayed at the 1815 Summer Exhibition. Other noted portrait painters submitting works included William Beechey, Martin Archer Shee and Henry Raeburn.
J.M.W. Turner Dido and Aeneas , a blend of landscape and history painting set in Ancient Carthage. [3] John Constable featured a landscape Ploughing Scene in Suffolk, depicting rural life in his native county. [4] In addition he submitted The Mill Stream .
The American Samuel Morse submitted a painting based on a scene from Don Quixote . David Wilkie displayed the genre paintings The Refusal and The Letter of Introduction . [5] The Bristol School artist Edward Bird produced the genre work The Cheat Detected and the historical Queen Phillipa Pleading for the Lives of the Calais Burghers. [6]
