The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1840 was the seventy second annual Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy of Arts. It was held at the National Gallery in London from 4 May to 24 July 1840 and featured submissions from leading painters, sculptors and architects of the early Victorian era. [1]
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J.M.W. Turner submitted a series of paintings including landscape scenes of Venice and Naples. One of his more unusual works was The Slave Ship which showed the crew of a slaver throwing their enslaved prisoners overboard in a scene likely inspired by the eighteenth century Zong massacre. [2] Edwin Landseer, a specialist in animal paintings, featured a number of works including Laying Down the Law . One of his best-known paintings it shows a group of dogs who resemble the proceedings of an English court of law. [3]
Francis Grant, an emerging Scottish portrait painter, displayed Queen Victoria Riding Out featuring Queen Victoria and her Prime Minister Lord Melbourne at Windsor. [4] David Wilkie submitted his own Portrait of Queen Victoria to a hostile critical reception.
