British Painting 1600–1800

This is the first major exhibition of British painting to be sent to this country and has been specially scheduled for Melbourne’s Christmas holiday viewing.

British Painting 1600–1800 offers an opportunity to see great paintings rarely on public view. Some of the paintings come from private collections (three are on loan from the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen), some from official residences (including a Gainsborough portrait which usually hangs in the dining room of No. 10 Downing Street), and some from little known and comparatively inaccessible public collections.

There are fifty-six paintings in the exhibition including major works by Van Dyck, Kneller, Hogarth, Reynolds and Stubbs. Twelve miniatures are on loan from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Amongst the paintings is Reynolds’s portrait of Sir Joseph Banks painted only four years after Banks’s voyage with Captain Cook and the discovery of Australia.

In the 17th and 18th centuries British painting was at its most vital and its brilliance is demonstrated not only in the great portraits and history painting but in the landscapes, delightful animal studies, and marine painting.

The exhibition has been organised by the British Council for the Australian Gallery Directors’ Council and comes to Melbourne after a very successful season in Sydney. The exhibition is sponsored by the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council and The Age.

Sourced from: Exhibition press release