ABSTRACT
The public first came to know Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy when small audiences visited the private gallery at Grosvenor House, viewed the painting at the British Institution, or purchased Young’s Catalogue. During the remaining years of the nineteenth century, publications, exhibitions, and print and photographic reproductions introduced The Blue Boy, Gainsborough, Jonathan Buttall, and the Grosvenor family to a broader public. Gainsborough’s Blue Boy achieved even greater recognition through the efforts of the German art historian Gustav Waagen. For the working class, special trains expedited travel to Manchester from manufacturing cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, and Bristol. The Art Treasures Exhibition introduced Gainsborough’s Blue Boy to a large audience and exhibitions during each of the remaining decades of the nineteenth century enlarged its recognition and renown. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Trade staged the Great London Exposition that belatedly opened in May 1862.
