page_title: Ralph Nicholson Wornum
section_title: Works
hierarchical_section_title: Ralph Nicholson Wornum / Works
caption_attribution_description: Modern Italy (Rawlinson 736) india proof engraving by William Miller after J M W Turner, published in The Turner Gallery. A series of engravings from the principal works of Joseph Mallord William Turner with a memoir and illustrated text. Wornum, Ralph Nicholson. Chatto and Windus, London. 1875
context_page_description: Ralph Nicholson Wornum was a British artist, art historian and administrator. He was Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery of London from 1855 until his death.
context_section_description: From 1840 he contributed to the Penny Cyclopædia, and in 1841 to William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, while he also wrote for the abortive Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In 1846 he began working for the Art Journal, and, having drawn attention to the shortcomings of the National Gallery catalogues then in circulation, he was authorised by Sir Robert Peel to compile an official catalogue. This appeared in 1847, and served as a model for similar publications.
  In 1848 he published an Essay upon the Schools of Design in France. In 1851 he was awarded the prize offered by the Art Journal for the best essay on 'The Exhibition of 1851 as a Lesson in Taste.'
  In 1855 Wornum edited and practically rewrote a Biographical Catalogue of the Principal Italian Painters, 'by a lady' (Maria Farquhar), while in 1856 he contributed the Lives of British artists to Edward Shepherd Creasy's British Empire. During 1861 he edited, in a sumptuous folio, with memoir and notes, The Turner Gallery, forming a series of sixty engravings. Walter Thornbury, in his Life of Turner (1862), passed some disparaging remarks upon Wornum; a reply came in an article in the Quarterly Review (April 1862), in which Wornum's work was commended. In the introduction to the Turner Gallery Wornum pleaded for an enlargement of the Trafalgar Square galleries, which were quite inadequate to contain the 725 pictures then belonging to the nation.
  Wornum's major publications were:
  ‘The Epochs of Painting: a biographical and critical Essay on Painting and Painters of all Times and many Places,’ London, 1847; enlarged, 1859 and 1864. This was dedicated by Wornum to the memory of his father. Appended to the later editions is ‘a table of the contributions of some of the more eminent painters to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy.’ This was adopted as a textbook for art school examinations.
  ‘Analysis of Ornament: the Characteristics of Style and Introduction to the Study of the History of Ornamental Art,’ London, 1856; 8th edit. 1893.
  ‘Some Account of the Life and Works of Hans Holbein, Painter, of Augsburg, with numerous illustrations,’ 1867. Appended was a catalogue of portraits and drawings by Holbein at Windsor.
  'Saul of Tarsus; or Paul and Swedenborg. By a Layman,' London, 1877. Wornum had been a member of the New Church, though as a 'non-separatist' he remained in communion with the Church of England. In this book he expressed the notion of conflict between the teaching of Christ and the theology of St. Paul.
  In addition Wornum edited:
  ‘Lectures on Painting’ [by Barry, Opie, and Fuseli], 1848, for the Bohn Library;
  Horace Walpole's 'Anecdotes of Painting in England,' with notes and emendations, London, 1849, 3 vols. (a revised edition appeared in 1888);
  'The National Gallery;' a selection of pictures by the old masters, photographed by Leonida Caldesi (with annotations), London, 1868–73;
  'Etchings from the National Gallery,' 18 plates, with notes, two series, 1876−8.
caption: Engraving by William Miller from The Turner Gallery (1875).
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