Conception beyond expression; or, the acme of pictorial criticism;

(John Phillips pseud Sharpshooter)

Conception beyond expression; or, the acme of pictorial criticism;

London, Ca. 1830

Etching

Original hand colouring

150 x 170 mm (image)

Trimmed to image with title pasted below

£120

Picture-gazers (in the costume of c. 1830) in (evidently) one of the rooms of the Royal Academy; a second room is seen through a doorway; both are lined to the ceiling with closely dovetailed pictures of varying sizes, landscape and portrait predominating. A dandified, bare-headed man, with a scowl of concentration, holds forth to an obese and John Bullish country gentleman. Dialogue below the title: ‘"What do you think of that picture?"—"Why, I like it; but it wants a kind of—you understand— you see it’s a—see there,—it wants—the colouring is—a—you see—that is—". —" Yes, I know it—I understand—it wants, as you say, a sort of—that is, a—a—a—"——"Exactly so."’