The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1846 was the seventy eighth annual Summer Exhibition held by the British Royal Academy of Arts. It took place between 4 May and 25 July 1846 at the National Gallery in London. [1] Including submissions by leading artists and architects, it featured both those who had made their name in the Regency era and younger figures of the Victorian era.
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The veteran painter J.M.W. Turner submitted a number of works. Going to the Ball and Returning from the Ball were inspired by his repeated visits to Venice. Hurrah for the Whaler Erebus and Whalers Entangled in Flaw Ice were apparent attempts to court the interest of the art collector Elhanan Bicknell who had made his fortune through the whaling industry.
One of the most popular paintings on display was William Mulready's Choosing the Wedding Gown based on Oliver Goldsmith's novel The Vicar of Wakefield . [2] A member of The Clique Edward Matthew Ward sent in the history painting The Disgrace of Lord Clarendon . The sixteen year old John Everett Millais made his exhibition debut with Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru . He later became a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Edwin Landseer displayed two companion paintings Time of Peace and Time of War. Widely praised at the time, both were subsequently destroyed during the Thames Flood of 1928. [3]
In portraiture Francis Grant presented equestrian portraits of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert. The French artist Alfred d'Orsay submitted a picture of the Duke of Wellington. [4]
