ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of the Treasury's actions on the Art Union of London and the disputes engendered by increased government 'interference' in the selling and distribution of the fine arts. For the social improvers and bourgeois radicals who formed the core of the Art Union of London's active support, its success proved that 'the precipitate adoption of some new-fangled German theory' was after all appropriate for the world of English art. 'In a commercial country', argued the historical painter George Foggo, 'almost everything requires to be done by individuals or by combinations of individuals', and he was by no means alone in elevating the freedoms to be won for art within civil society over the pretensions of the British state. Utilizing modern advertising and accounting techniques, art unions instigated a vision of a common cultural interest defined through the 'free' association of individuals rather than the high-handed imposition of traditional elites.
