What original piece was briefly displayed at Nottingham?
By the time Hope was exhibited, Watts had already committed himself to donate his most significant works to the nation, and although he received multiple offers for the painting he thought it inappropriate not to include Hope in this donation, in light of the fact that it was already being considered one of his most important pictures. In mid-1886 Watts and his assistant Cecil Schott painted a duplicate of the piece, with the intention that this duplicate be donated to the nation allowing him to sell the original. Although the composition of this second painting is identical, it is radically different in feel. The central figure is smaller in relation to the globe, and the colours darker and less sumptuous, giving it an intentionally gloomier feel than the original.In late 1886 this second version was one of nine paintings donated to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in the first instalment of Watts's gift to the nation. Meanwhile, the original was briefly displayed in Nottingham before being sold to the steam tractor entrepreneur Joseph Ruston in 1887. Its whereabouts was long unknown until in 1986 it was auctioned at Sotheby's for £869,000 (about £2,500,000 in 2019 terms), 100 years after its first exhibition.On their donation to the South Kensington Museum, the nine works donated by Watts were hung on the staircase leading to the library, but Hope proved a popular loan to other institutions as a symbol of current British art. At the Royal Jubilee Exhibition of 1887 in Manchester, an entire wall was dedicated to the works of Watts. Hope, only recently completed but already the most famous of Watts's works, was placed at the centre of this display. It was then exhibited at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition and the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, before being moved to Munich for display at the Glaspalast. In 1897 it was one of the 17 Watts works transferred to the newly created National Gallery of British Art (commonly known as the Tate Gallery, now Tate Britain); at the time, Watts was so highly regarded that an entire room of the new museum was dedicated to his works. The Tate Gallery considered Hope one of the highlights of their collection and did not continue the South Kensington Museum's practice of lending the piece to overseas exhibitions.
Hope