The Great Eighteenth Century Exhibition

The Great Eighteenth Century Exhibition aims to dramatize the richness of the Gallery’s 18th century collections of paintings, sculpture, prints and drawings, furniture, costumes, glass, porcelain and silver.

It is easy to take for granted a great collection like that of the National Gallery of Victoria. For the gallery goer, the Gallery must at times appear immutable, with the same works in the same position since time immemorial. Equally, people working inside the Gallery assume the quality of the collection and imagine it speaks for itself. No matter how rich and extensive, a collection must be constantly reinterpreted, organised and displayed in different ways so that works are brought into a dynamic relationship with each other and tell new stories to succeeding generations. Works of art do, of course, speak for themselves but part of their ‘voice’ comes from seeing them in relationship to the age which produced them, how they reflect the values and aspirations of that age, and how one work of art relates to another from within a particular period or style. How, for instance, do the decorative arts of the 18th century – the furniture, glass, silver and porcelain which people used every day, as well as the clothes that they wore – relate to the fine arts of painting, sculpture and drawing?

The Great Eighteenth Century Exhibition aims to bring that relationship alive to a wider audience than ever before. The exhibition is drawn entirely from within the Gallery’s resources with not a single piece borrowed for the occasion.

Extract from “Foreward” by Director, Patrick McCaughey, The Great Eighteenth Century Exhibition, Jane Clark, NGV, 1983