October 1856: National Gallery, Edinburgh – Art Union Exhibition to be Followed by the First Exhibition of the Art Manufacture Association of Scotland

An article on page two of The Morning Post, on Tuesday the 7th of October, 1856, opens:

 

“SCOTTISH ART MANUFACTURE EXHIBITION.—Following the exhibition of the Glasgow Art Union,

the National Gallery will be thrown open in the middle of December next, for the first exhibition of the Art

Manufacture Association of Scotland. We believe that every effort will be made to make the display of art, as

applied to manufactures, an extensive and attractive one. The object of the association is to encourage the

application of high art to the manufacture of articles of utility and ornament. As the first means of doing so, it

seeks to cultivate the public taste and to create a popular demand for art. This object, it is anticipated, will in

some degree be accomplished by annual exhibitions—to be held alternately in Edinburgh and Glasgow—exhibitions

which will likewise achieve the further purpose of the association, in encouraging the artist-manufacturer, and in

producing a supply. The association is also an art-union in itself, inasmuch as nearly its whole funds will be expended

in the purchase of works of art, to be distributed among the subscribers. As stated in the prospectus, ‘care will be taken

that each subscriber shall receive something valuable,’ and it also adds ‘that nothing shall be distributed in such

quantities as to make it too common. Numerous subscribers already appear on the list, each of them being only required

to pay one guinea. …”

 

 

 

The British Newspaper Archive.

 

 

 

George Fairfull-Smith, July 2025.