page_title: Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester 1857
section_title: Works exhibited
hierarchical_section_title: Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester 1857 / Works exhibited
caption_attribution_description: Michelangelo Buonarroti: The Virgin and Child with Saint John and Angels (The Manchester Madonna), Tempera on wood, 104,5 x 77 cm (Inv.: 809)
context_page_description: The Art Treasures of Great Britain was an exhibition of fine art held in Manchester, England, from 5 May to 17 October 1857. It remains the largest art exhibition to be held in the UK, possibly in the world, with over 16,000 works on display. It attracted over 1.3 million visitors in the 142 days it was open, about four times the population of Manchester at that time, many of whom visited on organised railway excursions. Its selection and display of artworks had a formative influence on the public art collections that were then being established in the UK, such as the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
context_section_description: The exhibition comprised over 16,000 works split into 10 categories – Pictures by Ancient Masters, Pictures by Modern Masters, British Portraits and Miniatures, Water Colour Drawings, Sketches and Original Drawings (Ancient), Engravings, Illustrations of Photography, Works of Oriental Art, Varied Objects of Oriental Art, and Sculpture. The collection included 5,000 paintings and drawings by "Modern Masters" such as Hogarth, Gainsborough, Turner, Constable, and the Pre-Raphaelites, and 1,000 works by European Old Masters, including Rubens, Raphael, Titian and Rembrandt; several hundred sculptures; photographs, including Crimean War images by James Robertson and the photographic tableau Two Ways of Life by Oscar Gustave Rejlander; and other works of decorative arts, such as Wedgwood china, Sèvres and Meissen porcelain, Venetian glass, Limoges enamels, ivories, tapestries, furniture, tableware and armour. The Committee bought the collection of Jules Soulages of Toulouse, founder of the Société Archéologique du Midi de la France for £13,500 to form the core of the collection of medieval and Renaissance decorative arts. The collection had previously been exhibited at Marlborough House in London with a view to being acquired for the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A), but HM Treasury refused to fund the purchase. They were later acquired by the V&A.
  The works were organised chronologically, to demonstrate the development of art, with works from northern Europe on one wall contrasted with contemporaneous works from southern Europe on the facing wall. Although the collection included works from Europe and the Orient, it had a clear emphasis on British works.
  Most public British collections were in a nascent state, so most of the works were borrowed from 700 private collections. Many had never been exhibited in public before. The exhibition included the Madonna and Child with Saint John and the Angels, which had only recently been attributed to Michelangelo. The showing of this unfinished work caused much excitement, and it is still known as the Manchester Madonna. French art critic Théophile Thoré commented that:
  La collection de Manchester vaut à peu près le Louvre ("Manchester's collection is worth almost as much as the Louvre's").
  Not all private owners responded positively to the committee's entreaties to lend their works of art. William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire reportedly declined, replying contemptuously: What in the world do you want with art in Manchester? Why can't you stick to your cotton spinning?
caption: Michelangelo's The Virgin and Child with Saint John and Angels, also known as the Manchester Madonna, c. 1497
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