The British School
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Judy Egerton
This readable and lively catalogue includes the results of fresh examination of each work by the National Gallery's Conservation and Scientific Departments. It also reflects recent scholarship and incorporates much new research. But it is chiefly designed for the general reader who wants to know more about the making and meaning of these familiar pictures and to learn something of their history.
The sixty British paintings now in the National Gallery are discussed in two parts. Major works by Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Stubbs, Turner, and Constable are featured in the first section. The second part consists of portraits (including three sculpted busts) of collectors or public servants who helped over the years to create the National Gallery as we now know it.
National Gallery Publications, London
"This . . . volume boasts an impressive format and numerous color illustrations. Artists include Boxall, Chantrey, Constable, Gainsborough, Hogarth, Hoppner, Jackson, Jones, Lawrence, Linnell, Reynolds, Sargent, Shee, Sievier, Stubbs, Turner, Wilson, Wood, Wright of Derby and Zoffany."—Library Journal
"Egerton . . . has written an indispensable catalog on the British school in the National Gallery. . . . Egerton is expansive in tone, comprehensive in analysis, and includes illustrations, making her catalog . . . readable and valuable. Her enlightening introduction summarizes the Gallery’s changing commitment to collect British art."—Choice
"Impressive. . . . The bulk of each entry is a long essay that examines in detail many aspects of the picture."—Maurice Davies, Museums Journal
"Judy Egerton . . . has written long, learned, observant, and in the best sense personal entries which read cumulatively as labours of love."—Alex Kidson, Burlington Magazine
"This much needed work charts, in its introduction the development of the National Gallery's holding of British paintings, from nine in its founding year, 1824, to over 500 in 1897, the year the Tate was established. . . . This is so satisfying on several imaginative levels (the scholarly, the visual, and the anecdotal) that it surely elevates Judy Egerton to the status of the 'good artist.' Verdict: a 'must have' item."—James Malpas, Art Newspaper
"Immensely detailed in the best tradition of Martin Davies, it is in other respects startlingly and refreshingly different. . . . Judy Egerton is more than willing to get off her academic high horse, and witty enough to inspire the reviewer to chuckle out loud."—Apollo Magazine
"Rarely, if ever, can an English public collection have been so well served. Yet this is . . . not merely a coffee-table book. Egerton has distilled often very extensive recent research and has added a good deal that is new."—John Gage, Times Literary Supplement
"Egerton has assembled an impressive array of primary sources—letters, diaries, contemporary criticism, satirical prints—that allow the painters, subjects, and their original audience to speak for themselves. . . . This volume refuses to allow the British School to be overshadowed by the 700 years of Western art history represented at Trafalgar Square."—Suzanne E. May, Albion
Publication Date: July 11, 1998
Publishing Partner: Distributed by Yale University Press for National Gallery Publications, London
140 b/w + 135 color illus.