3-039-163 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Book of Fate: a sketch at the Royal Academy of Arts, [London], 1871. Artists wating to find out the decision of the selection committee. 'Two years back, if we remember rightly, when the Royal Academy was about to open the first exhibition at its stately new home in Burlington-gardens,...the general body of artists submitted to the Academic Council some two thousand more works than usual, in the full expectation that, with nearly trebled space, many more than heretofore would be placed...We need hardly explain that the group here depicted consists of artists not within the Academic pale. Having offered their performances for the annual exhibition and passed some weeks in uncertainty, often, as may well be imagined, of the most painful description, they have assembled to learn a decision that in all probability will either make or mar their prospects for a whole year, to learn whether their works are to be suffered to meet the public eye, or are returned on their hands with the stigma of rejection. They have to apply to the porter or some other minor functionary, to whose questionable consideration and delicacy is intrusted the "Book of Fate" containing the names of both "accepted" and "rejected".' From "Illustrated London News", 1871.