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In 1807 an annual competition was instituted based on an idea by the late Sir Josuah Reynolds. Students were to paint a companion piece to one of the old master paintings on display. Cash prizes were awarded for the best paintings. The print shown here represents the gallery at a time when students are at work on their companion pieces. You will note there are women students included. The British Institution was much more open-minded about female painters than the Royal Academy.
The Reynolds exhibit being organized during the course of the book actually did take place in 1813. It was the first retrospective exhibit ever held for a British artist.
On another subject ... Many of you have commented on the cover for In the Thrill of the Night. It truly is lovely, and a huge improvement over my previous covers. I thought you might like to know how it came about.
The art department at NAL wanted to use an image that looked like a detail from a painting, and asked me to send them some images of paintings I liked. I am a huge fan of the French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and immediately went to my bookshelf and pulled down a copy of Ingres in Fashion by Aileen Ribeiro, which focuses on the fashion details revealed in Ingres' portraits. At the beginning of the book is a detail of hands from the portrait of the Princesses de Broglie. It is 40 years later than the period of my book, but I sent along the image anyway, with several others, because I especially liked the big swath of blue satin. Apparently the art department liked it, too. Using the detail from the Ingres portrait as inspiration, the cover for In the Thrill of the Night was born. You can see below the full painting and the detail compared to the cover.
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