The Art Treasures Examiner

In 1857 a great national art exhibition was held at Old Trafford, then a semi-rural suburb on the outskirts of Manchester. It was called the 1857 Art Treasures Exhibition, and was opened by Prince Albert in a specially constructed vast but temporary building.

To mark the occasion a limited edition of a large and sumptuous volume called The Art Treasures Examiner was advertised as being “the only PERMANENT RECORD – Pictorial, Critical, and Historical” of the exhibition”. It was ready for sale in November of that year, just in time to “be found suitable for a Christmas Gift Book, or an Elegant Volume for the Drawing Room Table”. (Priced however at ten shillings.) (1).

The distinguished contributors to the “Literary Department” of this work included Charles Allen Du Val, who wrote several articles. He also exhibited two pictures, Forgotten Vows and Recalled to Memory “which were a favourable expression of his power as a humorist, and attracted considerable notice”.

(1) Advertisement in the Manchester Times on 14 November 1857.