Royal Academy Exhibition 1793

The Catalogue
The 1793 exhibition was in Somerset House. We examined two versions of the catalogue; one is illustrated below. Another version of this catalogue is held by the Royal Academy (AND/8/196, the Anderdon copy, which we cannot illustrate). In the Anderdon copy there are annotations apparently by Edward.Bell:

• Marking Up of Anti-Room Exhibits that were Not Oils
  Against No.238, Russell, Bell has added 'drawing'; and against the final 3 items in the anti-room (two Russells and a Beck) he has added a curly bracket with the word 'crayon'. Bell was indicating that these were not oils. Russell, it can be seen, had four works in the anti-room. These were all pastels as were four of his works in 1792 hung in the same place. The curly bracket may have extended over the Beck by mistake
• Turner's Anti-Room Exhibit Not Marked Up
  In the Anderdon copy Bell has marked all three of Turner's exhibits with horizontal lines both sides but no other annotations so it may be assumed that they were not different in context from the other exhibits in their rooms and that the Turner in the anti-room was an oil and that the two in the library were watercolours.
• Annotations Indicate that Bell Did Not Know JMW Turner Personally
  There is nothing in the annotations to suggest that Edward Bell was a personal friend of JMW Turner. Bell attached separate sheets to his copy of the catalogue with lists of what appear to be works that he intended to examine although he gives no indication as to the nature of his interest; perhaps he was looking for likely subjects for engraving. In those lists he included JMW Turner's No. 263 and 316 but not 323.

The Anti-Room Exhibits
In a list of all pictures in the Anti-Room we have traced many titles to the present day and, apart from the four John Russell pastils, have found them to be oils or miniatures, consistent with the content of the Great Room. Work on this list is ongoing.

The Library Exhibits
There are many references to watercolour-drawings being hung in the Library. They are not included here.

Possibility of Typesetting Mistakes
The Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues are of extremely high quality. Nevertheless, small mistakes are inevitable with manual typesetting and often not noticed until the publication has gone to print. An example is found in Anti-Room no. 241 in the illustrated catalogue below where there is a mistake in typesetting 'Portrait' (Porttait) (set properly in the Anderdon copy).

This extract from the 1793 catalogue shows all the pictures exhibited in the 'Anti-Room' and some Library exhibits including Turner's