12 Facts About British Institution

British Institution was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it was known as the Pall Mall Picture Galleries or the British Gallery.

British Institution was founded in June 1805 by a group of private subscribers who met in the Thatched House Tavern in London.

Above Seguier the British Institution had a Keeper, a role given to a series of engravers.

The British Institution had been discussed with the Royal Academy before it was established, and relations were friendly, at least initially, though later there were to be tensions.

The first exhibition contained 257 works with a good selection of the leading British artists, including two Turners, two Stubbs paintings and five enamels, fourteen Benjamin Wests, four Paul Sandby's, two by Thomas Lawrence, one a huge history painting, three Copleys including his Death of Chatham, four James Wards, as well as 24 pictures from the Arabian Nights by Robert Smirke, who was to turn against the Institution.

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In 1810 the British Institution announced that in its first four years a total of 424 works had been sold, raising £20,900 for the artists ; by 1826 this cumulative figure was over £75,000.

British Institution commissioned or bought a number of paintings which were presented to the National Gallery, and some other institutions.

In 1826 the British Institution announced that nearly £5,000 in premiums, and over £14,000 on purchases had been spent to date, but from the 1830s the number and size of premiums slackens and the last premiums were in 1842, after which sums like £50 were given to artists' charities instead, and in later years no donations are recorded.

In 1850 the British Institution recorded a total of £28,515 in purchases, prizes and donations since 1806.

Foreign schools rotated until 1825 when only selected loaned works by living British Institution artists were shown, and for the next two years only works from the Royal Collection, essentially the new collections of the Prince Regent, by now King George IV.

In 1838 the living French artist Paul Delaroche was treated as an Old Master to allow exhibition of two of his large works on British Institution history including Charles I Insulted by Cromwell's Soldiers.

Later, by 1832 as reported by Passavant, the British Institution's routine was to hold a spring exhibition of paintings by contemporary artists, available for purchase, followed by a summer exhibition of old masters.