Reassessing connoisseurship before and after the Manchester art treasures exhibition of 1857

This thesis examines the evolution of connoisseurship before and after the exhibition ‘Art Treasures of the United Kingdom’ (Manchester, 5 May-17 October 1857). This work reassesses how the Manchester exhibition affected both technical and critical skills, as well as the professional opportunities, of the Victorian experts of Old Master painting, print and drawing. Scholarship has not shed full light on the complex and interconnected network of critical, technical, religious, and political interactions at the base of the 1857 show. Some relevant issues, indeed, are still unexplored. For instance, scholars have generally ignored Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (1819-1897)’s involvement in the 1857 exhibition, as well as the connoisseurial relevance and independence of the Manchester exhibition’s ‘Art Secretary’, Sir George Scharf (1820-1895). This thesis, however, demonstrates that Cavalcaselle operated at Manchester as Scharf’s private connoisseurial adviser. Furthermore, this work sheds light on the professional and connoisseurial competition that occurred, after the Manchester exhibition, between Gustav Friedrich Waagen (1794-1868) and Cavalcaselle. This thesis, finally, sheds light on the extent and depth of Joseph Archer Crowe (1825-1896)’s connoisseurship, nor on his substantial importance for the History of Art’s development. The argument of this thesis, moreover, is that the absence of some Old Masters that were not displayed at Manchester show has affected, as much as the pictures that Scharf selected for the 1857 show, the connoisseurial and art-historical approach to some specific Old Masters, in particular regards the iconographic, compositional and technical interactions between the Italian and Northern European schools of the late Quattrocento. This work is based on archival research, conducted in the Marciana National Library (Venice), as well as in the National Art Library (Victoria and Albert Museum) and the Heinz Archive (National Portrait Gallery) in London, and in the John Murray Archives (Scottish National Archives) in Edinburgh