Watercolour by Frederick Mackenzie depicting the principal room of the original National Gallery. Great Britain, ca. 1824-34.

Watercolour depicting the principal room of the original National Gallery on Pall Mall. There are students of art seated at easels, a male in the forground and two women in the background, making copies of works on display. Titian's 'Bacchus and Ariadne' and Claude's 'Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula' are among the paintings on the walls in the background.

This and the adjoining room at 100 Pall Mall were built for Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III., with an entrance from Carlton House. They were subsequently used by Mr John Julius Angerstein for this collection of pictures, 38 of which were sold by him to the nation for £57,000 in 1824, and thus formed the nucleus of the National Gallery. The rooms were demolished before Mackenzie exhibited his drawing (doubtless that here catalogued) of them at the Old Water Colour Society in 1834 (no. 334).
For identifications of the pictures shown in the drawing see Country Life 29 March 1921. Many of the paintings were acquired from Mr Angerstein, but some were from other sources, among the latter being Reynolds's 'Holy Family', which was presented by the British Institution in 1829: it occurs in J Scarlett Davis's painting of the interior of the British Institution in 1829 (reproduced in the Art Journal, 1910, p.134). Mr Angerstein possessed a full size replica of Reynolds's 'Holy Family'; it remained in the Angerstein Collection till the 6th April 1895, when it was sold for 280 guineas (Morning Post 1 January 1909).
The Literary Gazette for 1834 describes Mackenzie's drawing as "a marvellous picture in every respect - a National Gallery in itself! The perfection with which he has copied the old masters in frames the size of dominoes, and the effect of the whole, are quite extraordinary".

The drawing formerly belonged to Mr William Pilleau.

40-1887