The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1826 was an art exhibition held at Somerset House in London between 1 May and 8 July 1826. It was fifty eight annual Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy of Arts. [1] It featured submissions from leading painters, sculptors and architects of the Regency era.
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The President of the Royal Academy Thomas Lawrence attracted some of the greatest praise of the exhibition for the eight portrait paintings he displayed. [2] There included his Portrait of George Canning and a Portrait of Robert Peel, then serving in the government of Lord Liverpool as foreign secretary and home secretary respectively. The works had been commissioned by Peel, a third painting of Lord Liverpool exhibited at the academy the following year. [3]
Two of the notable history paintings on display were Edwin Landseer's The Hunting of Chevy Chase and Benjamin Robert Haydon's Venus and Anchises. It was the first time in seventeen years that Haydon had displayed a work at the academy due to a boycott. By contrast the younger Landseer was a rising young painter who would go on to be a prominent figure in the establishment. [4] Landseer portrayed a scene inspired by a popular ballad and the picture was greeted with enthusiasm by critics. [5]
John Constable exhibited two landscape paintings. Parham Mill and The Cornfield . Although he hoped to have his The Opening of Waterloo Bridge ready in time for the exhibition, it wasn't finally displayed until the 1832 edition. [6]
The Scottish painter David Wilkie was a notable absentee, following a breakdown in his health he briefly quit painting and travelled around Continental Europe. [7]
