ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the case of Nathaniel Hone's 1775 private exhibition. The history of the retrospective has received scant attention by art historians. The rise of the retrospective happened with contemporary artists vying for attention, recognition and patronage. Exhibitions were not only the platform from which artists presented their work to the public but also an arena in which they competed with one another. As with any other private exhibition the retrospective epitomised authorship and enabled artists to showcase their individuality. The Conjuror, which was the highlight of the exhibition, is a large oil painting that Hone had sent to the Royal Academy, together with six other works, to be exhibited at the seventh annual exhibition of that body. Hone was a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts and showed examples of his work in all exhibitions of that institution until his death in 1784.
