© 2004 by Oxford University Press
Old Masters and the English School
The Royal Academy of Arts and the notion of a national gallery at the turn of the nineteenth century
With the exception of Russia, Britain was the last major European state to establish a National Gallery of art, in 1824. Art historians and historians have studied individual moments in the pre-history of the National Gallery, yet a case remains to be made for a coherent if piecemeal development in British artistic culture towards the formation of a National Gallery. This essay seeks to provide elements for that case from the perspective of the institution which dominated British artistic culture during the half-century preceding the foundation of the National Gallery: the Royal Academy of Arts. The Academy advanced an authoritative argument for a central collection as a study resource for the English School, developed the notion and coined the term ‘national gallery’, lobbied the British state to establish an academic-cum-national gallery and proposed a visionary Dome of National Glory that would have doubled as national monument and gallery of British art. The essay locates British developments in a European context and considers trends in private collecting as well as substitutes for a national gallery, namely the British Institution, Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Academy's Painting School. Although the Academy was not directly involved in founding the National Gallery in 1824, some of its key objectives for such a central collection were embodied in the new institution.
+ Address for correspondence Dr Holger Hoock, Selwyn College, Cambridge CB3 9DQ. hh267{at}cam.ac.uk