Paintings from the Reign of Victoria: The Royal Holloway Collection, London
This exhibition includes 60 of the most important paintings of the Victorian period, encompassing the full range of subject matter and style. The paintings were acquired by Thomas Holloway and installed in the women’s college he founded in 1879, which is still in operation today as Royal Holloway, University of London.
The collection includes scenes of contemporary life, historical events, landscapes, animal studies, and marine subjects. Equating beauty with morality, Holloway believed art could be a teaching tool. He bought only the best paintings, with an established provenance, paying the highest prices at auction.
Artists represented include, among others, Sir Edwin Landseer, William Powell Frith, and Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir John Everett Millais.
The Royal Holloway Collection will complement the Delaware Art Museum’s Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art, which is the largest Pre-Raphaelite collection in the world outside the United Kingdom.