The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1819 was the fifty first Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy of Arts. It was held at the Academy's Somerset House headquarters in London from 3 May to 3 July 1819. It featured works by leading artists and architects of the Regency era. [1] It marked the fiftieth anniversary of the inaugural Exhibition of 1769, although there was little public acknowledgement of this other than the striking of a commemorative medal. [2]
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J.M.W. Turner exhibited two notable works. His Richmond Hill on the Prince Regent's Birthday is a picturesque view of the River Thames from Richmond Hill featuring a celebration of the Prince Regent's birthday. By contrast, Entrance of the Meuse is a stormy seascape in which depicts a Dutch merchant ship stranded on a sandbank during rough weather. [3] John Constable displayed the first of his "six-footers" The White Horse , a landscape painting featuring a view on the River Stour in his native Suffolk. [4]
Britain's leading portrait painter Thomas Lawrence was absent on the Continent fulfilling a commission from the Prince Regent to produce picture of the leading European figures involved in the defeat of Napoleon and therefore displayed no paintings at the Academy that year. A number of his rivals did have work on display including Thomas Phillips who exhibited a portrait of the Whig politician John Lambton and William Owen with a picture of Charles Abbott, the Lord Chief Justice.
Martin Archer Shee displayed his Portrait of William Roscoe featuring the Liverpool lawyer, art collector and abolitionist William Roscoe. William Beechey presented royal paintings including the Portrait of Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge , which consciously imitated the style of the fashionable Thomas Lawrence. [5]
The American-born President of the Royal Academy exhibited on of his final works The Stolen Kiss. David Wilkie displayed the genre painting The Penny Wedding while Edward Villiers Rippingille of the Bristol School submitted The Post Office . [6] [7]
