Charles Henri Joseph Cordier's Vénus africaine and Saïd Abdullah
George Cruikshank’s The first Shilling-day—coming out.
George Cruikshank (1792–1878)
The first Shilling-day—going in.
Etching, 1851
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Collection
The first Shilling-day—going in.
As many as 6 million people visited the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace exhibition hall in 1851. The show in London’s Hyde Park featured over 13,000 exhibits from more than 44 “Foreign States.” George Cruikshank’s prints comment humorously on this occasion, which is considered one of the defining moments of 19th-century invention and manufacture. Published to illustrate Henry Mayhew’s comical tale titled 1851: or, The Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and Family, Who Came up to London to “Enjoy Themselves,” and to See the Great Exhibition, the prints portray the hordes entering and leaving the Crystal Palace. So eager are they to enter the exhibition hall, visitors “going in” have abandoned their boots, hats, and other accoutrements at the entrance. “Coming out” shows them trying to reunite themselves with their belongings, now piled in a haphazard heap in the foreground.
: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Co…
Currently on View at Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
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