First Exhibition (1760)

The first awards given by the society were for discovering cobalt, raising and curing madder, and shipping breadfruit, and they had an emphasis on improving farming techniques.

[3] By 1756 the need for an exhibition of fine art was recognised with William Hogarth presenting a paper entitled 'containing some Hints relating to the Premiums for Drawings for the Future'.

By 1759 a 100-guinea premium for historical painting was established, and Robert Edge Pine proposed that the society hire a room to exhibit some works.

[5] There were hundreds of paintings, statues and illustrations from 68 artists shown in the exhibition, including men such as Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin Wilson, Richard Cosway and Louis-François Roubiliac.

Welsh landscape painter Richard Wilson used the exhibition to show, for the first time, one of his most significant paintings of his career, The Destruction of the Children of Niobe.

This Portrait of Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll by Joshua Reynolds was one of the paintings shown for the first time at the 1760 exhibition. Imperial Magazine said in its coverage that it made the duchess look like "the Queen of all grace and beauty". [ 1 ]