ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the spring exhibition continued unostentatiously to help the 'second division' of London painters make a living, the needs of the British Institution (BI) as an institution were increasingly served by the summer loan exhibitions of 'Ancient Masters'. The scholarly literature on the BI for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, established in London in 1805 to encourage the patronage of British artists, has focused upon the body's controversial career before 1830, paying little attention to the thirty-seven remaining years of its existence. The 'British School' at the BI and the spring exhibition were thus intended to have a symbiotic relationship with one another: the benefits of the study of the pictures loaned in the summer would be apparent in the new art created over the winter and exhibited in the spring. The gossip that surrounded him turned on the tension between public and private interests.
