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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 1481: ART EXHIBITION IN MANCHESTER.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

ART EXHIBITION IN MANCHESTER.

The exhibition in the Hyde Park Crystal Palace in 1851 suggested various other enterprises of a similar kind. Those of Paris and Dublin were especially brilliant. In Manchester, however, a plan was devised by which the glories of all those exhibitions were surpassed. The scheme was to gather the art treasures of the United Kingdom, and present them together before the public. A building suitable to the purpose was erected. It was not only not beautiful itself, but was exceedingly unsightly. It was, however, spacious, convenient, and so lighted as conduced to effect in an artistic display. The collection of productions was estimated, in money value, at six millions sterling. Amidst this glorious arrangement of works of genius, none probably attracted so much attention as those of MacDowell, the Irish sculptor. His chef-d’ouvre, the “Death of Virginia,” occupied the centre of the exhibition, and in this advantageous position commanded extraordinary admiration. On the day of opening the Prince Consort inaugurated the auspicious occasion. Her majesty and many foreign princes afterwards visited it. All these rich trophies of genius were restored without injury to their owners, except a very valuable China vase, which was knocked down and broken.