First
published in 1997, and written by leading scholars of the day , these
fifteen essays examine aspects of the reception and collecting of
Pre-Raphaelite Art, the social and cultural context in which the work
was favoured and acquired. Two major collections provide the focus for
the investigation: that of the Birmingham city Museums and Art Gallery
in the United Kingdom, and that of the American Samuel Bancroft Jr, now
part of the Delaware Art Museum. The study of these two collections both
formed in the late 1890’, places Pre-Raphaelite Art at nexus of
contemporary cultural issues that touched the lives of both the city
council, intent on establishing a public gallery of national importance,
and a wealthy American businessman, indulging a private passion for the
work of these artists. The contributors approach the issue in a variety
of ways, These include the study of the ambitions and self-perception
of collectors of the period, an analysis of the impact of John Ruskin’s
campaign to establish Pre-Raphaelite painting as the ‘Art of England’ ,
and its impact on notions of civic and national identity ; the
examination of individual painting in relation to such issues as the
portrayal of women, the nude and of religious subjects ; and the study
of the Victorian preoccupation with Renaissance Italy and the attempt by
Ruskin, Charles Fairfax Murray , advisor to the two collections, and
the Grosvenor Gallery, to proclaim the Pre-Raphaelite artists as the
true inheritors of the ‘genius’ of Renaissance Italian artists.These
essays were first presented at a symposium held at the Delaware Art
Museum during the exhibition there of the paintings of Birmingham City
Museums and Art Gallery.