Not being an art historian, nor a historian of sexuality, I had to do a lot of research in order to write A Sinner without a Saint. Here are some of the sources upon which I drew:
On Art
Online books about the British Institution:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=British%20Institution
Aikin, Arthur. Transactions of the Society, Instituted at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, manufactures, and Commerce. 40 (1822). https://www.jstor.org/stable/41325963?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[Agar-Ellis, George].“Catalogue of the celebrated Collection of Pictures of the later John Julius Angerstein Esq.” Quarterly Review 31:61, Dec. 1824, p 210-15.
Arnold, Dana. Squanderous and Lavish Profusion: George IV, His Image and Patronage of the Arts. London: Georgian Group, 1995.
Avery-Quash, Susanna and Julie Sheldon. Art for the Nation: The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World. London/New Haven: National Gallery/Yale UP, 2011.
Charles Lock Eastlake was appointed the National Gallery’s first “keeper.” This book gives great information about early training for an artist in the period, as well as background about the founding of the NG.
Birmingham, Ann. “ ‘An Exquisite Practise’: The Institution of Drawing as a Polite Art in Britain.” Brian Allen (ed.) towards a Modern Art World. Studies in British Art I. New Haven & London: Yale UP, 1995. 47-66.
Carey, William. A Descriptive Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings by British Artists in the Possession of Sir John Fleming Leicester, Bart. London, 1819.
L. Carlyle, The Artist’s Assistant: Oil Painting Instruction Manuals and Handbooks in Britain 1800–1900 with Reference to Selected Eighteenth-century Sources, London 2001
Conlin, Jonathan. The Nation’s Mantelpiece: A History of the National Gallery, London: Pallas Athene, 2006.
Detailed information about the years leading up to the founding of the National Gallery, including information about the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, a group of art collectors rather than practicing artists. “The epicenter of the Regency connoisseur’s world” (40).
Desenfans, Noel. A Plan, Preceded by a Short Review of the Fine Arts… London: Sampson Low, 1799.
Field, George. Chromatography, or a Treatise on Colours and Pigments and of their Powers in Painting, &c. London: 1835. Revised ed. Thomas W. Salter, ? Date.
Hamilton, Paul. “Critical Dilation: How William Hazlitt Judged Paintings.” Tate Papers 24 (2015)
Haskell, Francis. The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings and the Rise of the Art Exhibition. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000.
Hemingway, Andrew. “Art Exhibitions as Leisure-Class Rituals in Early Nineteenth Century London.” Brian Allen (ed.) towards a Modern Art World: Studies in British Art I. New Haven, CT: Paul Mellon British Art Centre, 1995. 95-103.
Hemingway analyzes magazine and newspaper reports of art exhibitions at the Royal Academy and the British Institution in the early nineteenth century, to give a better sense of the experience of the original viewers, as framed within these institutions and social spaces which are far different from those in which the contemporary viewer sees these works today. Commentary varied according to the political view of the paper, but overall the accounts reveal the emergence of “a new type of bourgeois public for art, which treated it primarily as a source of simple pleasures, and of a fraction of the intelligentsia, critics, who insisted that art should be the source of a profound moral and intellectual experience—an experience which the conditions of commercial society prevented artists from producing and the audience from having” (105). The critiques from both the left & the right but for different reasons. Great source for differing views of the characters on public art. Dulcie, Lattimer, Benedict, and Polly.
Long, Charles (Baron Farnborough). Short Remarks and Suggestions upon Improvements now carrying on or under Consideration. London: Hatchard, 1826.
Mulvihill, James. “ ‘True Portrait and True History’’ William Hazlitt’s Art Criticism.” Prose Studies 21.3 (1998): 32-50.
Nevola, Francesco. Soame’s Favorite Subject: The Story of the Dulwich Picture Gallery. London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2000.
A collection of drawings, paintings, and architectural plans for the building and subsequent renovations of the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Only one page of text about the donation of art that led to its founding.
Owen, Felicity and David Blayney Brown. Collector of Genius: A Life of Sir George Beaumont. Yale UP, 1988.
A biography of Beaumont by a descendent and a scholar. Good quotes about art and art controversies of the day.
Rovee, Christopher. Imagining the Gallery: The Social Body of British Romanticism. Stanford UP, 2006.
Shee, Martin Archer. A letter to the president and directors of the British Institution; containing the outlines of a plan for the national encouragement of historical painting in the United Kingdom. London: William Miller, 1809. [GOOGLE BOOKS]
Shee, a member of the Royal Academy, addresses this letter to the members of the BI.
Shee, Martin Archer. Rhymes on Art; or, The Remonstrance. London 3rd ed. 1806.
In the long preface to a poem, Shee encourages the “public” to better support the fine arts in England. He upbraids critics for transforming into antiquaries, preferring old and foreign artwork to new, and home-grown, works.
Smith, Thomas. Recollections of the British Institution, for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom: with some Account of the Means Employed for that Purpose; and Biographical Notices of the Artists who have received premiums, &c. 1805-1859. London: Simpkin & Marshall, 1860.
Pretty much what the title says it is. Includes the founding
Taylor, Brandon. Art for the Nation: Exhibitions and the London Public, 1747-2001. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1999.
The book’s opening two chapters, one about the development of the Royal Academy of Art in the 1760s, the other about the push for a National Gallery in the 1800-1820s, give great background information on debates about the purpose of public art exhibitions, as well as social analysis about their meaning.
Townsend, Joyce H. “The Materials Used by British Oil Painters in the Nineteenth Century.” Tate Papers no. 2. August 2004. Tate Britain. Online. http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/02/the-materials-used-by-british-oil-painters-in-the-nineteenth-century#footnote1_iqh45ld
Fabulous summary of all the existing literature currently available on 19th century British artist’s materials.
Tscherny, Nadia. “Likeness in Early Romantic Portraiture.” Art Journal 46.3 (Autumn 1987): 193-199.
Great article on the shift from 18th century ideals of portraiture as “Augustinian faith in universal truths which sees no value in nature’s ‘capricious’ manifestations and thus no art in their transportation to canvas,” to the Romantic vision of portraiture, based on the “philosophy that truth resides in the specific rather than the universal and that the infinite peculiarities of nature, far from being fantastic, are the constituents of reality.” (193)
Twist, Anthony. A Life of John Julius Angerstein, 1735-1823. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006.
Background on Angerstein’s collection of paintings, and how it came to serve as the foundation of the new National Gallery. I thought he had donated them in his will, but turns out he left his will open, allowed his son to decide. He wanted them all donated outright, or all purchased for a fair market value; didn’t want them given for a reduced fee.
“What Jane Saw.” Reproduction of the 1813 Exhibition at the British Institution Joshua Reynolds retrospective. http://www.whatjanesaw.org/1813/about.php
Walker, Richard. Regency Portraits volumes 1 & 2. London: National Portrait Gallery, 1985.
Waterfield, Giles. Soane and After: The Architecture of the Dulwich Picture Gallery. London: The Gallery, 1987.
Young, John. A Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Pictures of the late John Julius Angerstein, Esq. Containing a Finished Etching of Every Picture, and Accompanied with Historical and Biographical Notices. London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., 1823. (Pdf)
On homosexuality in the period
Crompton, Louis. Byron and Greek Love: Homophobia in 19th Century England. Berkeley: U of California P, 1985.
A great source explaining what an educated aristocrat in the period might have gleaned from his reading of the classics available in the period about homosexuality in ancient Greece.
Katz, Jonathan Ned. Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 2001.
Focuses on US, so not all that helpful for me. Took a few notes. Katz calls for historians to look at homosexuality in historical context, rather than as an ahistorical universal identity.
Norton, Rictor. Mother Clap’s Molly House: the Gay Subculture in England, 1700-1830. Rev. 2nd edition. Brimscombe Port, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Chalford Press, 2006.
Saslow, James M. Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York: Viking, 1999.
Links depictions of homosexuality in art to cultural ideas about same-sex desire in different periods throughout history. The opening chapter on Classical Greece and Rome is a good source, as is Chapter 5, covering 1700-1900.
Other sources:
Altick, Richard Daniel. The Shows of London. Cambridge, MA: Belknap P, 1978.
Gutch, Eliza, and M. G. W. Peacock. Examples of Printed Folk-lore Concerning Lincolnshire. Folk-Lore Society/David Nutt, 1908.
