Boydell Shakespeare Gallery

Boydell Shakespeare Gallery: A Grand Vision for British Art

Imagine a grand vision that sought to elevate the status of British history painting through the lens of William Shakespeare’s works. This was the ambitious project initiated by John Boydell in 1786, which aimed not only to foster a school of British history painting but also to create an illustrated edition of Shakespeare’s plays and a folio of prints based on contemporary paintings.

George Steevens played a crucial role as the general editor for the text’s correctness, while Boydell focused on the ‘splendor’ aspects. The project required elaborate logistics, including a subscription campaign to finance an enormous £350,000 print edition and a separate gallery exhibition.

The Birth of a Gallery

Boydell’s idea for the gallery came from Joshua Reynolds’s lectures on history painting’s superiority. The project required meticulous planning and execution, with George Dance designing the building as the Shakespeare Gallery. The gallery opened in 1789 with 34 paintings, adding 33 more prints when the first engravings were published in 1790.

The ‘magnificent and accurate’ Shakespeare edition, with gilded pages and a new typeface, was the main focus of Boydell’s enterprise. The edition included 36 plays printed from different texts, and the illustrations were printed independently and could be removed as needed. Artists such as Richard Westall, Thomas Stothard, and Benjamin West contributed to the edition, with Boydell paying generous sums to secure their work.

Artistic Contributions

The primary illustrators were known as book illustrators, while many of the artists in the folio were renowned for their paintings. Lennox-Boyd argues that the illustrated edition has a ‘uniformity and cohesiveness’ due to its understanding of book illustration.

A print folio was originally intended to be a collection of illustrations from the edition but was altered to include unique prints. The folio had 97 prints, with most made by ten artists and three accounting for one-third of the paintings.

Challenges and Criticisms

The project faced numerous challenges. Critics like Charles Lamb and James Gillray criticized the venture for its commercialization of Shakespeare’s works, while others praised artists such as James Northcote. Subscriptions dropped by two-thirds in 1796 due to poor engravings. The mix of engraving styles was criticized, and lesser artists were used at lower prices to finish the volumes as the business failed.

The firm’s focus on large projects led to financial difficulties when those projects failed. John Boydell appealed to Parliament for a private bill to sell his assets in 1804, which included his gallery and its collection of paintings worth £10,000. The Banks sculpture group was initially intended for the façade of the British Institution building but was instead relocated to New Place Garden in Stratford-upon-Avon after the building’s demolition in 1868-69.

Legacy and Impact

The Boydell Gallery accumulated over 200 works, including paintings, engravings, and sculptures. Some notable artists who contributed to the gallery include Fuseli, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Thomas Banks. The gallery’s contents were eventually sold by lottery in 1797, but some of its works remain on display today.

The building that housed the Boydell Gallery was purchased by the British Institution in 1805, which held exhibitions there until it was disbanded in 1867. The project’s legacy can be seen in various artworks and publications, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Lectures on Shakespeare’ and Charles Lamb’s children’s book, Tales from Shakespeare.

Boydell’s grand vision for the gallery not only contributed to the visual arts but also played a significant role in shaping how Shakespeare’s plays were staged, acted, and illustrated in the 19th century. The project remains a testament to the intersection of art, literature, and commerce in 18th-century Britain.