3-034-629 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition [in South Kensington]: entrance to the English Picture Gallery, 1871. 'The department which is formed by the British works of Fine-Art occupies nearly as much space as the fine-art productions of all foreign nations, if we except the French annexe. It fills the whole length of the western side of the great quadrangle on the upper floor, besides two adjoining towers and the gallery of the Royal Albert Hall, in which some water-colour drawings are placed. Of the apartments on the western side the north and south galleries are devoted to oil paintings; the centre gallery is assigned to water colours, and in the centre courts there is a mixed exhibition of pictures, with furniture, wood-carving, and other art-combinations. The character and merits of the works of contemporary British artists here presented to view have been made the subject of critical remark in our former notices of the Exhibition. Visitors ascending the stairs from the ground floor to this range of galleries are sometimes delayed a few moments by the crowd, and have leisure to contemplate the life-sized group of sculpture representing a herdsman with a bull, which stands at the bottom of the staircase'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.