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‘A gallery worthy of the British people’:

James Pennethorne’s designs for the National Gallery, 1845–1867

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Geoffrey Tyack
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Extract

Few of Britain’s public buildings have aroused so much public discussion over so many years as the National Gallery. Ever since the building was opened in 1838 it has been criticized for its inconvenient layout and for its failure to measure up to what Sir Robert Peel called ‘the finest site in Europe’. William IV, in one of his last recorded utterances, called it ‘a nasty little pokey hole’, and since then there have always been complaints about the lack of space both for pictures and for visitors. Yet successive proposals for rebuilding or replacement have foundered again and again. The still unwritten history of the building is littered with the debris of grandiose projects abandoned and piecemeal additions and alterations adopted in their place. With yet another extension under construction it is an appropriate time to re-examine the early history of this strangely unsatisfactory yet much-loved edifice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 33 , 1990 , pp. 120 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1990

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References

1 Hutchinson, S. C., History of Royal Academy 1768–1968 (1968), p. 103 Google Scholar; Companion to the Almanac (1838), pp. 221–23; Holmes, C. and Baker, C. H., The Making of the National Gallery (1924), pp. 52–54.Google Scholar

2 Crook, J. M and Port, M. W., History of the King’s Works, vi (1973), pp. 462–63 Google Scholar; Liscombe, R. W., William Wilkins (1980), pp. 180–84 Google Scholar; Needham, R. and Webster, A., Somerset House Past and Present (1905), p. 234.Google Scholar

3 Report of the Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures, PP (1836), ix (568), plan facing p. 98.

4 Barry, A., Life and Works of Sir Charles Barry (1867), pp. 274–75 Google Scholar; King’s Works, vi, p. 468.

5 Martin, G., ‘Wilkins and the National Gallery’, Burlington Magazine, CXIII (1971), p. 321 Google Scholar; Builder, 30 June 1860, p. 417.

6 PRO, Works 17/13/7, fol. 2; Rep. Select Committee on National Gallery, PP (1850), xv (612), p. 76.

7 Eastlake, C., The National Gallery: Observations on the unfitness of the present building for its purpose (1845)Google Scholar; Hansard, LXXXI, 27 June 1845, p. 1338.

8 Parker, C. S., Sir Robert Peel, III (1899), pp. 181–82 Google Scholar; Works 34/888, undated; Kings Works, vi, p. 371.

9 Minutes of National Gallery Trustees, 1, pp. 352–53; PRO, Works 17/13/7, fols 3–7; PP (1850), xv, pp. 76–77.

10 PRO, T 5282/19832; Holmes and Baker, p. 55.

11 PP (1850), xv, pp. iii, 77–87.

12 Hansard, cix, 25 March 1850, pp. 1368–69.

13 RIBA MS PeJ. 1/1; RIBA drawings collection, W3/1/1-2.

14 J. Fergusson, Observations on the British Museum … (1849); Crook, J. M. The British Museum (1973), pp. 170–72.Google Scholar

15 PP (1850), xv, p. 3.

16 Hansard, cxn, I July 1850, p. 814.

17 PP (1850), xv, p. iv.

18 Report of the Commisioners for Considering Site for new National Gallery, PP (1851), XXII (642), p. 1.

19 Survey of London, XXXVIII (1975), pp. 57–58; Hobhouse, H., Prince Albert: his Life and Works (1983), p. 76.Google Scholar

20 Report of the Select Committee on National Gallery, PP (1852–53), xxxv, (867), pp. XV-XVIII, 723–76 and passim.

21 Ibid., pp. 625–27.

22 I have been unable to trace the original, but there is a contemporary photograph in V & A Guard Book 2506, and there are variants in the same book (2512–13).

23 Hansard, CXLII, 12 June 1856, pp. 1393–94; The Times, 21, 27 and 28 June 1856.

24 Hansard, CXLII, 27 June 1856, pp.2097-154; CXLII, 30 June 1856, p. 13.

25 Report of the Commissioners on National Gallery Site, PP (1857) (sess. 2) xxiv (2261), CXLIII, pp. iii-vi.

26 Minutes of Trustees, 11, p. 300.

27 Robertson, D., Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World (Princeton, 1978), pp. 78–80, 134–38 Google Scholar, etc.; Finberg, A.J., The Life of J. M. W. Turner R.A., 2nd ed (Oxford, 1961), pp. 441–45.Google Scholar

28 PRO, Works 17/10/2, fol. 1; Works 33/1333.

29 Hutchison, History of the Royal Academy, p. 122; Hansard, CLII, 8 Feb. 1859, pp. 181–84. The gallery also housed the recently-aquired Sheepshanks collection of early nineteeth-century paintings as well as the Vernon and, for a time, the Turner pictures. See Physick, J., The Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1982).Google Scholar

30 Building News, 1 Apr. 1859, pp. 299–300; PRO, Works 1/66, p. 50.

31 Minutes of Trustees, iv, pp. 239–42, 249–51; PRO, Works 17/10/1, fol. 45V; Works 17/10/2, fols 15–46. The final cost was £16,704.

32 PRO, Works 33/1336-86; Builder, 6 Apr. 1861, pp. 231–33.

33 Building News, 8 Mch 1861, pp. 211–12.

34 Hansard, CLXIV, col. 1015; Building News, 19 July 1861, p. 598. Horsley, J. C., Recollections of a Royal Academician (1903), pp. 285–86 Google Scholar. says that the gallery was later used for a period to house the pictures from the Turner bequest; I owe this reference to Dr Selby Whittingham.

35 Minutes of Trustees, iv, pp. 278–79.

36 Report of the Select Committee on Turner and Vernon Pictures, House of Lords Sessional Papers (1861), v, (201), pp. iv, 25–29; Finberg, Turner, pp. 448–49.

37 The drawing was sold at Christies by one of Pennethorne’s descendants on 14 June 1983, catalogue no. 136.

38 PRO, Works 30/530.

39 Ibid., 529. There is a perspective drawing of the façade in the RIBA Drawings Collection, XO5/D/14.

40 Report of the Commissioners into the present position of the Royal Academy, PP (1863), XXVII (3205), pp. xxi-xxiii; Building News, 19 Feb. 1864, p. 142.

41 Minutes of Trustees, iv, pp. 322, 328–29.

42 The Times, 23 July 1862.

43 Hansard, cixxv, 6 June 1864, pp. 1301–16; Builder, 11 June 1864, p. 431.

44 PRO, Works 17/13/12, fols 1–2.

45 PRO, Works 1/78, p. 116; Works 2/29, p. 90; Works 17/13/12, fols 5, 7–9.

46 PRO, Works 2/31, p. 8.

47 Broadlands Papers (Historical Manuscripts Commission) WFC/A/2, 26 April 1865.

48 PRO, Works 17/13/12, fol. 11; Works 33/1335.

49 PRO, Works 17/15, fol. 13.

50 PRO, Works 1/85, p. 264.

51 See Grubert, H., ‘The 1866 Competition for a new National Gallery’ (MA thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1967).Google Scholar