Exhibitions International & Colonial

Antique Prints of International and Colonial Exhibitions

This category brings together original antique prints, engravings and illustrations depicting the great international and colonial exhibitions of the 19th century — those extraordinary gatherings of industrial, artistic and natural produce from across the world that defined the cultural ambitions of the Victorian era and provided the framework within which the nations and colonies of the world presented themselves and their achievements to an international public.

The Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 — the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, held in Hyde Park, London — established the template for the international exhibition as a global institution. Housed in Joseph Paxton’s revolutionary iron and glass Crystal Palace, the exhibition attracted more than six million visitors and generated an extraordinary body of illustrated documentation. Prints depicting the Crystal Palace exterior, the vast interior spaces and the exhibits of participating nations circulated in illustrated periodicals, souvenir publications and independent print editions, creating a visual record of the event of remarkable completeness and variety.

The success of the 1851 exhibition inspired a succession of international expositions that followed the Crystal Palace model across the second half of the 19th century. The Paris Exhibitions of 1855, 1867, 1878, 1889 and 1900, the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the numerous national and colonial exhibitions held in London, Melbourne, Sydney and other imperial centres each generated their own body of illustrated documentation that captured the physical character of the event — the exhibition buildings, the national pavilions, the spectacular engineering achievements and the human spectacle of millions of visitors — for audiences unable to attend in person.

Australian colonial exhibitions — the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880, the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879 and subsequent events — are of particular significance for Australian collectors, documenting the way in which the Australian colonies presented themselves and their natural and industrial resources to the world at a critical moment in their development towards federation.

Antique exhibition prints are collected for their historical documentation of the great public events of the Victorian era, their architectural and engineering interest, and their value as records of the culture of international display and comparison that shaped the modern world.