The Great Exhibition in Art : Picturing the First World’s Fair, 1851

The Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World’s Fair, is generally thought of as a giant trade fair, a showcase for empires and industry. However, it was also conceived to address a deep-rooted problem with British taste, which favoured European art and design over British. Julius Bryant’s richly illustrated new book, which draws on the vast visual resources of the V&A’s collections, establishes the centrality of works of fine art amongst the objects on show at the Great Exhibition.

It also highlights the ways in which contemporary artists were commissioned to depict and record the Exhibition’s building and displays for reproduction in commemorative publications. Through reproductions of period images from definitive official publications, commercial guides, souvenirs, music scores, poems and satirical periodicals, the book brings to life the 19th-century visitor’s experience of the first World’s Fair. It documents Prince Albert’s vision for the Exhibition alongside the planned and actual routes as recorded in official engravings, maps and guidebooks; the opening and closing ceremonies as depicted in prints; the official visual record of the Exhibition; and souvenirs, popular press and ephemera.

It concludes by examining the legacy of the Great Exhibition, including the founding of an institution which shared the Exhibition’s mission to educate the public about art, design and taste: the Victoria and Albert Museum.