Royal Academy Exhibition of 1879

The Gordon Riots by John Seymour Lucas

Royal Academy Exhibition of 1879 was the hundred and eleventh annual Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy of Arts. It was held at Burlington House in London's Piccadilly from 5 May to 4 August 1879 and attracted 391,000 visitors. It featured submissions of paintings, sculpture, etchings and architectural drawings from leading artists and architects of the Victorian Era. It was the first to take place since Frederic Leighton had succeeded Francis Grant as President of the Royal Academy.

Elizabeth Thompson displayed two scenes of military art Listed for the Connaught Rangers and Remnants of an Army, the latter depicting a scene from the Retreat from Kabul in 1842. The most talked-about of the portraits was John Everett Millais' Portrait of William Ewart Gladstone featuring the politician who served as Prime Minister four times. The Scottish artists John Pettie's history painting The Death Warrant was widely praised. The landscape painting The Waning of the Year by Ernest Parton was acquired through the Chantrey Bequest and one critic suggested "if we go on in this manner we shall, in the international race, overtake France one of these days". Despite the success of his Road to Ruin series the previous year, the veteran painter William Powell Frith did not exhibit any works that year.

Historical paintings of scenes from British history were on display. The Gordon Riots by John Seymour Lucas depicted the 1780 riots that hit London during the American War of Independence. Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux showed the life of Frederick Ponsonby being saved by a French officer at the Battle of Waterloo. While On the Evening of the Battle of Waterloo by Ernest Crofts shows Napoleon abandoning his carriage in the wake of his defeat.

Gallery

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  Listed for the Connaught Rangers by Elizabeth Thompson
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  Remnants of an Army by Elizabeth Thompson
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  On the Evening of the Battle of Waterloo by Ernest Crofts
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  Portrait of William Ewart Gladstone by John Everett Millais
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  The Penitent's Return by Luke Fildes
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  Alice in Wonderland by George Dunlop Leslie
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  Waiting for the blessing of Pope Pius IX at St John Lateran, Rome by Keeley Halswelle
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  Queen Esther by Edwin Long
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  Amarilla by Frederic Leighton
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  Catarina by Frederic Leighton
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  Biondina by Frederic Leighton
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  Elijah in the Wilderness by Frederic Leighton
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  Football by William Barnes Wollen
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  A Musical Story by Chopin by Andrew Carrick Gow
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  In the Time of Constantine by Lawrence Alma-Tadema
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  A Hearty Welcome by Lawrence Alma-Tadema
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  Pomona Festival by Lawrence Alma-Tadema
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  Tanning Nets by James Clarke Hook
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  The Mushroom Gatherers by James Clarke Hook
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  Little to Earn and Many to Keep by James Clarke Hook
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  Hard Hit! by William Quiller Orchardson
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  A Midsummer Night by Henry William Banks Davis
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  No Surrender by Andrew Carrick Gow
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  A Greek Ode by Alfred Elmore
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  The Proposal of the Jews to Ferdinand and Isabella by Solomon Hart
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  A Prayer for those at Sea by Frederick Daniel Hardy
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  The Swineherd, Gurth, Son of Beowulph by Charles Edward Johnson
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  An English Hayfield by Benjamin Williams Leader
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  The Waning of the Year by Ernest Parton
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  Mountain of the Holy Cross by Thomas Moran
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  A Warm Sunny Evening by Thomas Sidney Cooper
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  Science is Measurement by Henry Stacy Marks
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  A Scene from Barnaby Rudge by Fred Barnard
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  Disturbed, A Plover Rising from Its Nest by John Wright Oakes
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  Their Only Harvest by Colin Hunter
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  In the Shade by Marcus Stone
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  Ruth and Boaz by David Wilkie Wynfield
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  In Manus Tuas, Domine by Briton Riviere
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  The Prince of Wales Crossing the Sarda by Herbert Johnson
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  The Return of the Victors by John Gilbert
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  Toil and Pleasure by John Robertson Reid
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  The Meeting of the Mersey and the Weaver by John Finnie
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  The Struggle for Existence by George Bouverie Goddard
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  The Stronghold of the Seison by John Brett
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  Vashti by Edwin Long
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  The French Naturalist in Algiers by John Evan Hodgson
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  My Native Land, Goodbye by Henry Nelson O'Neil
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  Unbreathed Memories by John Seymour Lucas
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  Gil Blas and the Archbishop of Granada by William Ewart Lockhart
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  Till Death Us Do Part by Edmund Blair Leighton
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  La Biccolante, A Venetian Water-Carrier by William Frederick Yeames
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  Scene from Molière's Le Medecin Malgré Lui by William Maw Egley
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  Hinemoa, the Maori Girl by Nicholas Chevalier
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  The Daughter of the House by Frank Holl
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  Free from Care by Thomas Faed
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  Marjory and Lettice by Arthur Hughes
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  Priscilla by George Henry Boughton
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  A Venetian Girl by William Charles Thomas Dobson
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  Samuel Laing by Pieter Van Havermaet
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  Giovanni Costa by Frederic Leighton
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  Alfred Baldwin by Edward Poynter
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  George Burt by John Edgar Williams
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  Samuel Cousins by Frank Holl
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  William Armstrong by George Frederic Watts
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  Countess Brownlow Frederic Leighton
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  John Lort Stokes by Stephen Pearce

See also

• Salon of 1879, a contemporary art exhibition held in Paris

Bibliography

• Green, Richard & Sellars, Jane. William Powell Frith: The People's Painter. Bloomsbury, 2019.