An Exhibition History of Victorian Leeds is a groundbreaking account of the city’s cultural history through its public exhibitions. Offering a vivid analysis of these striking displays in appropriated spaces, it explores Leeds’ relationship with fine and decorative arts, industrial culture and the sciences over the course of the nineteenth century. This significant contribution to urban history establishes Leeds’ importance to the development of British art and design, collecting practices and museum culture, firmly situated in their regional, national and international contexts. From temporary exhibitions in music halls and cloth halls, hospitals and military barracks emerged the networks and structures that informed the development of the city’s permanent cultural institutions. The book closes with the first comprehensive history of the establishment of Leeds Art Gallery, its inaugural exhibitions and founding donations, which would go on to form one of the strongest collections of fine art in the country.

The 19th century in Western culture was a time of both confidence and turbulence. Industrial developments resulted in a number of benefits from a growing middle class to efficiency, convenience and innovation across a range of fields from engineering to architecture. Alongside these improvements, the century began with the extended period of the Napoleonic Wars and was further disrupted by rebellions and revolutions both within Europe and in India, South America and other parts of the world. Slavery was abolished and urbanization increased dramatically. These myriad developments were reflected throughout the period in the proliferation of types of furniture, along with their categorization as 'industrial art' at the international exhibitions and world fairs and the increasingly adventurous range of materials that were sometimes used in their construction. Nonetheless, a strong antiquarian/historicist strand also prompted interest in the revival of past styles in areas of art and design, including furniture. Drawing upon a wealth of visual and textual sources, this volume presents essays that examine key characteristics of the furniture of the period on the themes of Design and Motifs; Makers, Making, and Materials; Types and Uses; The Domestic Setting; The Public Setting; Exhibition and Display; Furniture and Architecture; Visual Representations; and Verbal Representations.

Rather than the customary focus on the activities of individual collectors, The Emergence of the Antique and Curiosity Dealer in Britain 1815–1850: The Commodification of Historical Objects illuminates the less-studied roles played by dealers in the nineteenthcentury antique and curiosity markets. Set against the recent ‘art market turn’ in scholarly literature, this volume examines the role, activities, agency and influence of antique and curiosity dealers as they emerged in the opening decades of the nineteenth century. This study begins at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when dealers began their wholesale importations of historical objects; it closes during the 1850s, after which the trade became increasingly specialised, reflecting the rise of historical museums such as the South Kensington Museum (V&A). Focusing on the archive of the early nineteenth-century London dealer John Coleman Isaac (c.1803–1887), as well as drawing on a wide range of other archival and contextual material, Mark Westgarth considers the emergence of the dealer in relation to a broad historical and cultural landscape. The emergence of the antique and curiosity dealer was part of the rapid economic, social, political and cultural change of early nineteenth-century Britain, centred around ideas of antiquarianism, the commercialisation of culture and a distinctive and evolving interest in historical objects. This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, histories of collecting, museum and heritage studies and nineteenth-century culture.

"The book challenges the common view that the Exhibition symbolized peace, progress, prosperity, and the emergence of an industrial middle class. Auerbach suggests instead that the Great Exhibition became a cultural battlefield on which proponents of different visions of industrialization, modernization, and internationalism fought for ascendancy in the struggle for a new national identity."--BOOK JACKET.

Explore the lives of your ancestors in the 'city of 1,000 trades' in this family and local history guide, dedicated to the city of Leeds. Learn how to find out more about the streets where your ancestors lived, where they would have gone to school and church and chapel, how they'd have spent their leisure time, what life would have been like for immigrants in the city, and discover more about the different trades in which your family members were involved.Leeds is home to many different archives and collections, from records of major companies such as Joshua Tetley & Sons, Burtons Tailors and Marks & Spencers, to street plans, photo collections and records of theatres and football clubs. Rachel Bellerby's handbook shows you how to get started with your research, building up an intriguing and colourful record of the city that your ancestors called home. It is an essential guide for anyone living in Leeds or with family connections to the city.

This book presents the history of a gentlemen’s club in London that was founded in 1866 for the purpose of exhibiting private art collections. It takes the main exhibition themes as a starting point to explore approaches to art, connoisseurship and display in a unique setting.

The Victorian Art School documents the history of the art school in the nineteenth century, from its origins in South Kensington to its proliferation through the major industrial centres of Britain. Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, together with earlier examples in Manchester and Birmingham demonstrate an unprecedented concern for the provision of plentiful light and air amidst the pollution of the Victorian city. As theories of design education and local governance converged, they also reveal the struggle of the provincial city for cultural independence from the capital. Examining innovations in the use of new technologies and approaches in the design of these buildings, The Victorian Art School offers a unique and explicitly environmental reading of the Victorian city. It examines how art schools complemented civic ‘Improvement’ programmes, their contribution to the evolution of art pedagogy, the tensions that arose between the provincial schools and the capital, and the role they would play in reimagining the relationship between art and public life in a rapidly transforming society. The architects of these buildings synthesised the potential of art with the perfection of the internal environment, indelibly shaping the future cultural life of Britain.

These essays expose how meaning has been produced around the Great Exhibition. It contains readings of the historical record of the exhibition, exploring the use of industrial knowledge & the contested definitions of nation & colony.

Photography emerged in 1839 in two forms simultaneously. In France, Louis Daguerre produced photographs on silvered sheets of copper, while in Great Britain, William Henry Fox Talbot put forward a method of capturing an image on ordinary writing paper treated with chemicals. Talbot’s invention, a paper negative from which any number of positive prints could be made, became the progenitor of virtually all photography carried out before the digital age. Talbot named his perfected invention "calotype," a term based on the Greek word for beauty. Calotypes were characterized by a capacity for subtle tonal distinctions, massing of light and shadow, and softness of detail. In the 1840s, amateur photographers in Britain responded with enthusiasm to the challenges posed by the new medium. Their subjects were wide-ranging, including landscapes and nature studies, architecture, and portraits. Glass-negative photography, which appeared in 1851, was based on the same principles as the paper negative but yielded a sharper picture, and quickly gained popularity. Despite the rise of glass negatives in commercial photography, many gentlemen of leisure and learning continued to use paper negatives into the 1850s and 1860s. These amateurs did not seek the widespread distribution and international reputation pursued by their commercial counterparts, nearly all of whom favored glass negatives. As a result, many of these calotype works were produced in a small number of prints for friends and fellow photographers or for a family album. This richly illustrated, landmark publication tells the first full history of the calotype, embedding it in the context of Britain’s changing fortunes, intricate class structure, ever-growing industrialization, and the new spirit under Queen Victoria. Of the 118 early photographs presented here in meticulously printed plates, many have never before been published or exhibited.