3-008-553 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition: view from the orchestra on the opening day - from a photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company, 1862. '...the scene during the performance of the special music beneath the eastern dome...[View looking] down on the Queen's commissioners...the Royal commissioners for the exhibition...and the more distinguished and privileged visitors, such as the Duchess of Cambridge, the Foreign Ministers, Peers, members of Parliament, &c....In the foreground, in front of Minton's unfinished majolica fountain, which was filled for the occasion with flowering plants, sit...the Queen's commissioners - the Duke of Cambridge, the Crown Prince of Prussia, Prince Oscar of Sweden, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Chancellor...On a bench in front of them sit the commissioners of the exhibition and other principal personages...the Bishop of Londonderry being conspicuous in the picture. On each side are grouped the occupants of the estrade which was placed beneath the orchestra, and a view given of that portion of the galleries which look at the dome filled with spectators who, more fortunate than most of the occupants of places a short way beyond the dome, could both see and hear satisfactorily'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.