Royal Academy Exhibition of 1851

The Monarch of the Glen by Edwin Landseer

The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1851 was the eighty third annual Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy. It was held at the National Gallery in London between 5 May and 16 August 1851 during the Victorian era. It faced strong competition in public interest from the Great Exhibition being held in Hyde Park at the same time.

The exhibition marked the high point of critical attacks on the young artists of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, although they were staunchly defended by the art historian John Ruskin. J.M.W. Turner, who had first appeared at the Exhibition of 1790, was too ill to produce any paintings but attended the varnishing day where he was sketched by John Everett Millais. He died in December 1851.

Amongst the several works submitted by Edwin Landseer was The Monarch of the Glen featuring a stag, which became one of the iconic images of the Scottish Highlands Daniel Maclise displayed the history painting Caxton Showing the First Specimen of His Printing to King Edward IV depicting a scene from the fifteenth century.

Francis Grant who had established himself as a leading portraitist of the early Victorian period submitted several pictures of High society figures. Clarkson Stanfield displayed the landscape Trajan's Arch, Ancona as well as the battle painting The Battle of Roveredo depicting a scene from the French Revolutionary Wars. John Martin displayed The Valley Of The Thames Viewed From Richmond Hill.

Amongst Pre-Raphaelite paintings on display were John Everett Millais' The Woodman's Daughter, The Return of the Dove to the Ark and Mariana as well as William Holman Hunt's Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus.

Gallery

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  The Highland Lassie by Edwin Landseer
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  The Highlander by Edwin Landseer
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  A Midsummer Night's Dream by Edwin Landseer
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  A Group of Animals, Geneva by Edwin Landseer and David Roberts
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  Hogarth Brought Before the Governor of Calais as a Spy by William Powell Frith
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  Interior of the Church of St Anne, Bruges by David Roberts
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  Caxton Showing the First Specimen of His Printing to King Edward IV by Daniel Maclise
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  Cromwell at the Battle of Naseby by Charles Landseer
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  The Woodman's Daughter by John Everett Millais
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  Trajan's Arch, Ancona by Clarkson Stanfield
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  The Battle of Roveredo by Clarkson Stanfield
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  Oxwich Bay by Clarkson Stanfield
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  Greenwich Hospital from the West Side by James Holland
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  Mariana by John Everett Millais
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  The Return of the Dove to the Ark by John Everett Millais
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  Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus by Holman Hunt
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  Convent Thoughts by Charles Allston Collins
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  John Gilpin, Delayed by his Customers by Edward Matthew Ward
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  Chaucer at the Court of Edward III by Ford Madox Brown
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  The Royal Family of France in the Prison of the Temple by Edward Matthew Ward
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  Youth and Age by John Callcott Horsley
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  L'Allegro and Il Penseroso by John Callcott Horsley
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  The Goths in Italy by Paul Falconer Poole
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  The Martyrdom of Laurence Saunders by Charles West Cope
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  Pepys and Nell Gwynne by Augustus Leopold Egg
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  The Rescue of the Brides of Venice by James Clarke Hook
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  Raising the Maypole by Frederick Goodall
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  Auld Robin Gray by Thomas Faed
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  The First Step by Thomas Faed
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  The Evening Drink in the Canterbury Meadows by Thomas Sidney Cooper
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  View in Richmond Park by John Martin
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  A Highland Stream by Frederick Richard Lee
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  A Fine Day in February by John Middleton
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  Macready as Werner by Daniel Maclise
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  The Little Gleaner by William Powell Frith and Thomas Creswick
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  The Trial of Sir William Wallace at Westminster by William Bell Scott
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  The Auld Farmer's New Year's Gift by Richard Ansdell
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  The Defeat of Shylock by James Clarke Hook
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  King Lear and the Fool in the Storm by William Dyce
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  Spring Flowers by George Smith
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  William Gibson Craig by John Watson Gordon
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  Portrait of Charles Barry by John Prescott Knight
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  Portrait of William Wordsworth by Henry William Pickersgill
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  John Bird Sumner by Eden Upton Eddis
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  John Potter by George Patten
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  Ralph Wardlaw by Daniel Macnee
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  William Bennett by Charles Allston Collins
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  Madame Rachel by Edouard Dubufe
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  Duchess of Aumale with her son Louis by Victor Mottez
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  Mrs Livesay by Francis Grant
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  William Erle by Francis Grant
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  George Stephenson by John Lucas
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  Marquess of Anglesey by Henry Richard Graves

Bibliography

• Baetjer, Katharine (2009). British Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1575-1875. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-348-7.
• Huckvale, David (11 December 2015). A Dark and Stormy Oeuvre: Crime, Magic and Power in the Novels of Edward Bulwer-Lytton. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-2279-8.
• Stanfield, Clarkson (1979). The Spectacular Career of Clarkson Stanfield, 1793-1867: Seaman, Scene-painter, Royal Academician. Tyne and Wear County Council Museums. ISBN 978-0-905974-03-3.

Further reading

• Collins, Wilkie, Text of his long review published in Bentley's Miscellany in June 1851
• Hauptman, William. “Hanging the Pre-Raphaelites and Others: The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1851.” The British Art Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2018, pp. 4–28. JSTOR Accessed 30 June 2026.