Royal Academy Exhibition of 1847

The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1847 was an art exhibition held in London. It was the seventy ninth annual Summer Exhibition held by the British Royal Academy of Arts. It took place at the National Gallery between 3 May and 24 July 1847 and featured many of the leading painters, sculptors and architects of the early Victorian era.^[1] While Martin Archer Shee was the President of the Royal Academy, he was deputised in the role by J.M.W. Turner. Amongst the works Turner himself displayed was The Hero of a Hundred Fights, a tribute to the Duke of Wellington.

The exhibition reflected the growing prominence of the art group The Clique. Edward Matthew Ward displayed his Hogarthian history painting The South Sea Bubble.^[2] Romanticism continued to be strongly represented. Edwin Landseer's The Deer Drive features a scene in the Scottish Highlands.^[3] Clarkson Stanfield's French Troops Fording the Magra combined landscape with history by showing a scene from the French Revolutionary Wars.^[4] William Etty showed a trilogy of paintings with scenes from the life of Joan of Arc. The future Pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt submitted Dr Rochecliffe Performing Divine Service in the Cottage of Joceline Joliffe, a scene from Walter Scott's novel Woodstock.^[5] John Everett Millais also entered a single, early work Elgiva Seized by Order of Archbishop Odo.^[6] The French artist Paul Delaroche exhibited a version of Napoleon at Fontainebleau.

In portraiture Henry William Pickersgill displayed his Portrait of Robert Vernon, depicting the noted art collector who the same year presented the large Vernon Gift of artworks to the nation including this picture.^[7] Francis Grant's Portrait of Sidney Herbert has been described as one of his finest portraits.^[8] In addition he exhibited a portrait of the railway tycoon George Hudson.