Exhibition:“ ‘Seen With Great Delight’: Spectacle in Georgian London” on view through August 22

June 3, 2025
A well-dressed crowd stand outside, enter, or struggle to enter a wide doorway, Broadsides announcing the exhibition are posted on the exterior wall above which in large letters is No 5, flanking an elaborate fan-light. They mount steps from the street, throng the vestibule, and are seen through an open window (right) ascending a staircase. A man in the vestibule shouts.

Curated by Alison Fitzgerald, Maynooth University, the exhibition primarily focuses on images drawn from the LWL’s extensive collections that announce, depict and satirise what people paid to gaze at.  Who ultimately judged what was “eminently remarkable” in an unashamedly commercial context?  At the heart of this equation were the spectators, united by the impulse of curiosity but far from homogenous, and at times, making a spectacle of themselves.