ABSTRACT
In the early 1970s Francis Haskell started to lay the basis for a thoroughgoing revisionist approach to the art of the nineteenth century, while acknowledging the galvanising effect of public exhibitions and endorsing their historical mission. The problem that Haskell rightly saw as having become acute in the third quarter of the twentieth century was the declining interest not just in the ‘historical genres’ of the nineteenth century, but in the whole tradition of ‘history painting’, as it had developed from the Renaissance onwards. In this chapter, Stephen Bann draws on his own contacts with Haskell over a long period, while tracing his role in the rediscovery of nineteenth-century historical painting, with particular emphasis on reappraising the work of Delaroche. This is just one small ingredient in the many-faceted body of work that Haskell published over the years. But it pinpoints precisely the constancy of his involvement, throughout his career, in cases where the judgements of art historians, connoisseurs and curators diverged from, or might be deemed incompatible with, the duty of historical objectivity.
