The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1834 was the sixty sixth annual Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy of Arts. It took place between 5 May and 19 July 1834 at Somerset House in London. It took place during the reign of William IV and featured many painters, sculptors, engravers and architects who had developed their reputations during the Regency era. [1]
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The exhibition featured the absence of several number of prominent painters including John Constable and William Mulready. Notable attractions included Edwin Landseer's Bolton Abbey in Olden Times, set in at a Yorkshire during the medieval era and Daniel Maclise's The Installation of Captain Rock. [2] [3] The latter deployed a mythical rebel Captain Rock reflecting the agrarian unrest in Ireland similar to the English figure Captain Swing.
The President of the Royal Academy Sir Martin Archer Shee displayed several pictures including his Portrait of William IV . Margaret Sarah Carpenter submitted Portrait of Countess Howe . Carpenter was the leading female portraitist of the era but was never elected to membership of the academy. [4]
David Wilkie best known for his genre paintings, two genre works Not at Home and The Spanish Mother as well as four portraits. [5] Amongst them was a picture of the Duke of Wellington dressed as Constable of the Tower. [6] Francis Grant, later a noted portraitist and a future President of the academy, made his debut with two works. He enjoyed great success with his sporting picture The Melton Hunt Breakfast. [7]
