Showing 105 results

Painted by Anna Zinkeisen. In 1758 the Society of Arts offered prizes for what were known as 'ship's blocks', i.e. scale models of ships, in order to 'ascertain by experiments the principles on which a good vessel is founded'. Water resistance and resistance to rolling were two of the main qualities it was desired to test. It was not until 1761 that sufficient models had been submitted for the prizes but that year six entries, 4 32-gun frigates and 2 74-gun ships, were tried at Peerless Pool, near Old Street, in the City of London. 26,500 copies sold.

Shows part of the Nave and West Dome of the International Exhibition of 1862, with the statue of Queen Victoria, by John Durham, in the right foreground. The Exhibition, which lasted from May to November, occupied the site in South Kensington where the Natural History and Science Museums now stand. The Society was the prime mover of this great display of the arts, sciences, manufactures and trade, perhaps the high water-mark of Victorian material prosperity and ebullience in design. It was responsible for the initial planning, for raising the necessary guarantee fund and for nominating the managing Commission. The Exhibition itself was on a larger and more ambitious scale than its famous predecessor of 1951, and attracted nearly six and a quarter million visitors. 24,000 copies sold

First painting in a series entitled 'The Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture', displayed in the Great Room. This painting 'exhibits mankind in a savage state, full of imperfection, inconvenience and misery': not least being the savage animals in the middle and far distance. Orpheus himself, who occupies the centre of the composition, is extolling to his auditors the values of human culture. The countenances of those on the right hand who are attending to the divine lessons show 'the effect of those benefits which accrue to Mankind from the True Philosophy and Religion'. 19,500 copies sold.

Second painting in a series entitled 'The Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture', displayed in the Great Room. This picture commemorates the votive rites 'established by the doctrinal songs of Orpheus. Barry describes the scene as follows 'In the foreground are young men and women dancing round a double terminal figure of Sylvanus and Pan, the former with his lap filled with the fruits of the earth...in the other corner is...a group of inferior rustics...less amiable, more disorderly, and mean...Inthe top of the picture, Ceres, Bacchus, Pan &c., are looking down with benignity and satisfaction, on the innocent festivity of their happy votaries, behind them is a limb of the zodiac, with the signs of Leo, Virgo and Libra, which mark this season of the year. In the distance is a farm house, binding corn, bees &c., male and female employments, courtships, marriage and a number of little children...' an unstated analogy between the birth of the ancient Greek religion and Christianity, in which we can see the child playing with a bird on a string as the infant Jesus, his mother as Mary and companion as the Baptist, makes this painting of especial significance at Christmas time. 20,200 copies sold.

Founder and first Secretary of the Society. Minature presented to the Society in 1786, the inscription beneath is based on that of an original copper-plate engraving of the minature executed by Hincks himself. 11,800 copies sold.

24 members of the Society's Committee of Agriculture gathered in what was then the open countryside of Brompton, between Westminster and Kensington, to witness the performance of four newly invented seed drill. The Chairman of the Committee can be seen standing in the foreground with Joshua Steele, the celebrated writer on prosody, and Major General George Eliott. To the General's left is the Reverend Humphrey Gainsborough (a brother of Thomas), who looks toward the middle distance at the seed drill he has invented and for which the Society gave a prize of £30. The other successful machine, invented by James Willey appears prominently in the centre of the picture. It won its inventor a prize of £20. Willey stands talking to Joshua Steele and the General and pointing towards his drill. In the background can be seen the two unsuccessful drills, one of which was to be found to be 'capitally defiecient in some part' and the other to be too close to Jethro Tull's famous prototype. 27,000 copies sold.

On 18th December 1850, Charles Dickens, Vice President, in the Chair, Mr W Bridges Adams read his paper on Railway Influence and Extension. The Adelphi had been an area of mystery for Charles Dickens in his unhappy childhood and David Copperfield, in the same predicament, would wander about the district, finding excitement in the strange inhabitants of the riverside. In the foreground of the painting Dickens is surrounded by his characters and in the background he can be seen arriving at the Society. 31,000 copies sold.

William Shipley is shown selling winter fuel to the poor at summer prices in a street called the Drapery, in the centre of the town, where he had lodgings and a studio for his professional work as an artist and drawing master from 1747 until 1753. He is being assisted in his calculations by some of the richer Northampton residents who had, after some years' canvass, agreed to subscribe to his fund. The success of his scheme to defeat the Northampton fuel profiteers made Shipley persevere with his plan to raise a national fund for rewarding useful inventions and artistic excellence and in 1753 he came to London with the express purpose of founding a Society of Arts. 28,200 copies sold.

Alternative Christmas card design, image used for the newly designed covers of the Society's journal and other publications. 5,600 copies sold

Alternative Christmas card, based on a plate from Volume XXIII of the Society's Transactions. 2,100 copies sold.

In 1793, the Society's Gold Medal was adjudged to Captain William Bligh RN, Master of HMS Providence, for his success, the previous year, 'in conveying from the Islands in the South Sea, to...the Islands in the West Indies subject to the Crown of Great Britain, the Breadfruit Tree, in a growing state'. The picture depicts the scene of Bligh's arrival in the West Indies, where in fact he delivered a great variety of plants, in addition to breadfruit, at St Vincent's and Jamaica. Bligh is the officer in the central foreground, carrying a telescope. Bligh had first visited the South Seas as Captain Cook's sailing-master in the Resolution in 1772-74 and it was during this expedition that the breadfruit trees was discovered at Otaheite. His first attempt to transplant it, whilst Master of the Bounty in 1788-89, ended in the notorious mutiny. a hydrographer and botanist of distinction as well as a thoroughly competent seaman, he was in later life elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. After his unhappy experiences as Governor of New South Wales in 1808-1810, he returned to England, was promoted to Flag rank and died in December 1817. 39,000 copies sold.

Illustrations of inventions are reproduced from drawings based on engravings which originally appeared in the Society's Transactions. 33,500 copies sold.

In 1872 the Society offered prizes for improvements in the design of London cabs. Many of the leading cab proprietors and builders of the day put forward their vehicles. These were submitted to extensive testing, including a journey in procession from Kensington to the City and back, by a special committee of the Society, which suggested detailed practical improvements to six of them. Eventually four of the improved cabs were awarded prizes of £30 each. The picture shows the scene in the grounds of Malborough House on 1st November 1872, when the Prince of Wales, President of the Society, inspected the winning cabs. The Journal reports that His Royal Highness 'expressed himself pleased with the vehicles' and 'gave an order for one for use at Sandringham'. The Prince is depicted in the left foreground with members of the Society's Council and on the extreme right is seen the Princess of Wales with her children. 49,500 copies sold.

The Society signed the building agreement with Robert and James Adam on 21st March 1772, and the foundation stone of the House was laid (at its west end) exactly a week later. The work was finished 'most justly and faithfully' to the specifications in April 1774 and the Society took occupation during the following June. The building with pilatered facade which close the view at the end of John Street still survives virtually unchanged. Adelphi Terrace (on the extreme right of the picture) was demolished in 1936. In the group appearing in the left foreground Robert Adam is displaying his design for the front elevation of the House to Members of the Society, whilst his brother James, also carrying plans, points toward the site. 56,700 copies sold.

Reporoduced by permission of the Dean and Chapter, designed by Gordon Drummond, TD, ARMS, member of council. 41,813 copies sold.

The view of the painting as a whole is taken from somewhere near the site of the present Waterloo Bridge and shows the Royal Terrace just after completion. The Terrace was the major portion of the Adam Brothers' Adelphi scheme, which involved the reclamation of this part of the river and the construction also of John Street, Adam Street and Robert Street, which was not yet built when the picture was painted. A number of members of the Society of Arts had Adelphi addresses at this period, including Robert and James Adam and David Garrick. The Terrace was demolished in 1936 to make way for the building then inscribed Adelphi, arrogating the name of an entire district. Of the true Adelphi only the Society's own premises, Robert Street and some houses in Adam Street survive. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of London. 34,000 copies sold

This painting was commissioned from the artist in 1863 by Members' subscriptions as part of the Society's memorial to the Prince Consort's Presidency (1843-1861). Together with a companion portrait of the Prince himself (by C.W. Cope, RA) it was hung in the Great Room. Both pictures remained there until the alterations to the Society's House in 1922-23 when they were removed to their present positions on the main staircase. In Horsley's painting The Queen and her children are shown as they would have been in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, which Prince Albert so largely inspired and guided. The young Prince of Wales is holding a plan of the Exhibition building. The other children depicted are (in order of age) The Princess Royal, Princess Alice, Prince Alfred (subsequently Duke of Edinburgh), Princess Helena, Princess Louise and little Prince Arthur (who as Duke of Connaught was to assume the Presidency in 1911). 43,125 copies sold.

Thomas Malton the younger (1748-1804) is best known for his 'Picturesque Tour through the Cities of London and Westminster (1792), etchings of some 100 drawings including a view of the House of the Society of Arts, which had awarded him a premium in 1774, coincidentally, the year of the building's completion. The picture shows on the left, the pedimented block, five lights wide, of what is now No. 18. This, together with the bow fronted building on the right of the picture still survives. But the house next to No. 18, the adjacent, graceful shops and buildings in the Strand, glimpsed at the end of the street, were demolished long ago. The Society did not acquire the freehold of its main house (No. 8) and of the coeval residence for the Secretary (No. 6) until 1922. In December 1977 it purchased the freehold of Nos 4 and 2 and of 18 Adam Street. The Society now owns the largest surviving range of original Adelphi builidngs, all of them designed by Robert and James Adam. The isometric drawing on the back of the card shows the relationship of these various houses. It also indicates the extent of the premises below ground, including huge vaults which extend far beneath John Adam Street. 44,147 copies sold.