The Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London, was an exhibition hall built in the ancient Egyptian style in 1812, to the designs of Peter Frederick Robinson. The Hall was a considerable success, with exhibitions of artwork and of Napoleonic era relics. The hall was later used for popular entertainments and lectures, and developed an association with magic and spiritualism, becoming known as "England's Home of Mystery".
In 1905, the building was demolished to make way for flats and offices.
The Egyptian Hall was commissioned by William Bullock as a museum to house his collection, which included curiosities brought back from the South Seas by Captain Cook. [1] It was completed in 1812 at a cost of £16,000. [2] It was the first building in England to be influenced by the Egyptian style, [3] partly inspired by the success of the Egyptian Room in Thomas Hope's house in Duchess Street, which was open to the public and had been well illustrated in Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807). Unlike Bullock's Egyptian temple in Piccadilly, Hope's neoclassical façade betrayed no hint of the Egyptianizing decor it contained. Detailed renderings of various temples on the Nile, the Pyramids and the Sphinx had been accumulating for connoisseurs and designers in works such as Bernard de Montfaucon's, ten-volume L'Antiquité expliquée et representée en figures (1719–1724), which reproduces, methodically grouped, all the ancient monuments, Benoît de Maillet's Description de l'Égypte (1735), Richard Pococke's A Description of the East and Some Other Countries (1743), and Frederic Louis Norden's Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie (1755); the first volume of the magisterial Description de l'Egypte (1810) had recently appeared in Paris. The plans for the hall were drawn up by architect Peter Frederick Robinson. [4] Bullock, who had displayed his collection in Sheffield and Liverpool [5] before opening in London, used the hall to put on various spectaculars, from which he made money through ticket sales. The museum was variously referred to as the London Museum, the Egyptian Hall or Museum, or Bullock's Museum.
The Hall was a considerable success, with an exhibition of Napoleonic era relics in 1816 including Napoleon's carriage taken at Waterloo being seen by about 220,000 visitors; [6] Bullock made £35,000. In 1819, Bullock sold his ethnographical and natural history collection at auction [7] and converted the museum into an exhibition hall. Subsequently, the Hall became a major venue for the exhibiting of works of art; it had the advantage of being almost the only London venue able to exhibit really large works. Usually admission was one shilling. In 1820, The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault was exhibited from 10 June until the end of the year, [8] rather overshadowing Benjamin Robert Haydon's painting, Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, on show in an adjacent room; Haydon rented rooms to show his work on several occasions. In 1821, exhibitions included Giovanni Battista Belzoni's show of the tomb of Seti I in 1821, and James Ward's gigantic Allegory of Waterloo . In 1822, a family of Laplanders with their reindeer were imported to be displayed in front of a painted backdrop, and give short sleigh-rides to visitors. [9]
The bookseller George Lackington became owner of the Hall in 1825 and went on to use the facilities to show panoramas, art exhibits, and entertainment productions. The Hall became especially associated with watercolours. The old Water-Colour Society exhibited there in 1821–22, and it was hired by Charles Heath to display the watercolours commissioned by from Joseph Mallord William Turner forming Picturesque Views in England and Wales. Turner exhibited at the Hall for a number of years and it was also used as a venue for exhibitions by the Society of Painters in Water Colours.
In the "Dudley Gallery" at the Egyptian Hall, the valuable collection of pictures belonging to the Earl of Dudley was deposited during the erection of his own gallery at Dudley House in Park Lane. The room gave its name to the Dudley Gallery Art Society (also known as The Old Dudley Art Society) when they were founded in 1861 and used it for their exhibitions. It was the venue chosen for their first exhibitions by the influential New English Art Club.
The hall was used principally for popular entertainments and lectures. Here Albert Smith related his ascent of Mont Blanc, illustrated by some cleverly dioramic views of the Alpine peaks. [10]
By the end of the nineteenth century, the Hall was also associated with magic and spiritualism, as a number of performers and lecturers had hired it for shows. In 1873 William Morton took on the management of the Hall and modified it for his protegees, Maskelyne and Cooke, whose run there lasted a remarkable 31 years. [11] The Hall became known as England's Home of Mystery. Many illusions were staged including the exposition of fraudulent spiritualistic manifestations then being practised by charlatans. The final performance was on 5 January 1905. [12]
In 1905 the building was demolished [13] to make room for blocks of flats and offices at 170–173 Piccadilly. Muirhead Bone captured its demise in his work The Dissolution of Egyptian Hall. The Maskelynes relocated to the St. George's Hall in Langham Place, which became known as Maskelyne's Theatre. [14]
Hotten documents the name in 1859 used as rhyming slang for a ball. Franklyn comments in 1960 "The term was demolished with the building." [15]
John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
Benjamin Robert Haydon was a British painter who specialised in grand historical pictures, although he also painted a few contemporary subjects and portraits. His commercial success was damaged by his often tactless dealings with patrons, and by the enormous scale on which he preferred to work. He was troubled by financial problems throughout his life, which led to several periods of imprisonment for debt. He died by suicide in 1846.
The Hunterian is a complex of museums located in and operated by the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the oldest museum in Scotland. It covers the Hunterian Museum, the Hunterian Art Gallery, the Mackintosh House, the Zoology Museum and the Anatomy Museum, which are all located in various buildings on the main campus of the university in the west end of Glasgow.
William Bullock was an English traveller, naturalist and antiquarian. He established what was called Bullock's Museum, first in Liverpool which he then moved to London.
Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, and Admiral Nelson's defeat of the French Navy at the Battle of the Nile later that year. Napoleon took a scientific expedition with him to Egypt. Publication of the expedition's work, the Description de l'Égypte, began in 1809 and was published as a series through 1826. The size and monumentality of the façades discovered during his adventure cemented the hold of Egyptian aesthetics on the Parisian elite. However, works of art and architecture in the Egyptian style had been made or built occasionally on the European continent since the time of the Renaissance.
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh is a nonprofit organization that operates four museums in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The organization is headquartered in the Carnegie Institute and Library complex in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The Carnegie Institute complex, which includes the original museum, recital hall, and library, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 1979.
Owen Jones was a British architect. A versatile architect and designer, he was also one of the most influential design theorists of the nineteenth century. He helped pioneer modern colour theory, and his theories on flat patterning and ornament still resonate with contemporary designers today.
John Nevil Maskelyne was an English stage magician and inventor of the pay toilet, along with other Victorian-era devices. He worked with magicians George Alfred Cooke and David Devant, and many of his illusions are still performed today. His book Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill is considered a classic overview of card sharp practices. In 1914 he founded the Occult Committee, a group to "investigate claims to supernatural power and to expose fraud".
Peter Frederick Robinson was an English architect.
Bolton Art Gallery, Library & Museum is a public museum, art gallery, library and aquarium in the town of Bolton, England, owned by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council. The museum, Bolton Museum, is housed within the grade II listed Le Mans Crescent near Bolton Town Hall and shares its main entrance with the library, Bolton Central Library, in a purpose-built civic centre.
Ancient Mexico was an exhibition by William Bullock of casts of Aztec artefacts and both copies and originals of Aztec codices, held in 1824 in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London. Objects exhibited included the "calendar stone", the statue of Coatlicue, the Stone of Tizoc, and an unidentified statue of a giant serpent.
The ʻahu ʻula, and the mahiole were symbols of the highest rank of the chiefly aliʻi class of ancient Hawaii.
The Art Museum of the University of Memphis is located at 3750 Norriswood Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. It is the principal art museum of the University of Memphis. The museum was opened in 1981 as The University Gallery; in 1994 the gallery received its present name.
The Evanion Collection is a collection of printed Victorian ephemera in the British Library created by the conjurer, ventriloquist and humorist Henry Evans who used the stage name 'Evanion'.
The Society of Women Artists (SWA) is a British art body dedicated to celebrating and promoting fine art created by women. It was founded as the Society of Female Artists (SFA) in 1855, offering women artists the opportunity to exhibit and sell their works. Annual exhibitions have been held in London since 1857, with some wartime interruptions.
Sebastian Gahagan was a sculptor of Irish descent active in London. His most notable works are the monument to Sir Thomas Picton in St Paul's Cathedral, and a statue of the Duke of Kent in Park Crescent, Portland Place. He was also employed by Joseph Nollekens, carrying out the carving of many of his major works.
Allegory of Waterloo, also known as Triumph of the Duke of Wellington or the Triumph of Great Britain after the Battle of Waterloo, was a monumental painting by British artist James Ward, completed in 1821, and now lost.
Egyptian Revival architecture in the British Isles is a survey of motifs derived from Ancient Egyptian sources occurring as an architectural style. Egyptian Revival architecture is comparatively rare in the British Isles. Obelisks start appearing in the 17th century, mainly as decorative features on buildings and by the 18th century they started to be used in some numbers as funerary or commemorative monuments. In the later 18th century, mausoleums started to be built based on pyramids, and sphinxes were used as decorative features associated with monuments or mounted on gate piers. The pylon, a doorway feature with spreading jambs which support a lintel, also started to be used and became popular with architects.
Barnett Samuel Marks R.C.A. was a Welsh-Jewish portrait painter who was also noted for his social realism paintings.
Walter Severn, professionally a civil servant, was known as an English water-colour artist.
51°30′29″N0°8′21″W / 51.50806°N 0.13917°W
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