This should be a very interesting exhibition featuring a number of important 18th and 19th century British works of art … some of which have been carefully restored to their former glory. According to William Dalrymple, in The Guardian, Artist and Empire – Facing Britain’s Imperial Past (which opens on Wednesday at the Tate) is an important start in the uphill task of evaluating the complex and ambivalent legacy of the British empire. It is full of wonderful masterworks; but as important is its balance and sensitivity for how to handle this most explosive subject, as the British belatedly begin to face the scale of their global legacy, good and bad.
Included in the exhibition are Elizabeth Butler’s The Remnants of an Army (1879); William Barnes Wollen’s The Last Stand of the 44th Regiment at Gundamuck (1842); John Everett Millais’s The North-West Passage (1874); George Stubbs’s Cheetah and a Stag with Two Indian Attendants; Thomas Hickey’s Three Princesses of Mysore; Zoffany’s Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match; Thomas Daniell’s Sir Charles Warre Malet, Concluding a Treaty in 1790 in Durbar with the Peshwa of the Maratha Empire and Augustus John’s TE Lawrence in Arab dress.
Dalrymple goes on to state that … these are works that not only record some of the most crucial turning points of British imperial history, but also rank among the country’s most significant contributions to the history of art. To read more, click HERE.
And for additional information, please visit the Tate’s site HERE.
Elizabeth Butler’ “Remnants of an Army”