DICKINSON BROTHERS.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851. First edition, an elaborate collection of views from the largest industrial manufacturing spectacle of its time. The illustrations show in detail the layout of products, natural or man-made, of each country or region that participated. Each is accompanied by a description giving geographical, historical, and social context to the goods.The Great Exhibition of Products of Industry of All Nations was instigated by Prince Albert with the intention of improving British industrial design. It was held in Joseph Paxton's "Crystal Palace" in Hyde Park, London, in the summer of 1851. The exhibition featured over 100,000 products made all around the world and attracted six million visitors, including Queen Victoria, who went a total of 34 times. Profits from the exhibition went towards the establishment of the South Kensington Museum, later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of the 55 illustrations in the volume, 49 were commissioned by Prince Albert specifically to be reproduced by Dickinson Brothers in chromolithography, then a new process. The original watercolours by Joseph Nash (1808-78) and Louis Haghe (1806-85) are now held in the Royal Collection.

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