Attendance
United Kingdom
There’s always a risk
Single work shows don't always pay off
By The Art Newspaper. Museums, Issue 227, September 2011
Published online: 14 September 2011
General Tom Thumb
It was with high hopes that Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) hired London’s Egyptian Hall in 1846 to display his latest vast canvas. But rather than pay to see The Banishment of Aristides, around 1846, crowds flocked to see General Tom Thumb (above), who was appearing at the same Piccadilly venue. The 31-inch-high American made the then enormous sum of £600 in a week, whereas Haydon’s takings were a paltry seven pounds and 13 shillings. Haydon’s single-show exhibition of Christ’s Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem, 1814-20, had been a hit in 1820, although it was overshadowed by Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, 1818-19, on show in a room nearby. Riah Pryor
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