Brighton Museum & Art Gallery will showcase rarely seen views of the Royal Pavilion estate in a new display running from 14th March to 13th September.
The exhibition, Visions of the Royal Pavilion Estate, will feature a number of illustrations from the earliest printed books about the estate, as well as unrealised designs, early municipal maps, 20th century plans and images and digital reconstructions.
“The display will survey the Royal Pavilion and its estate as it was and might have been, featuring rarely seen views alongside discarded designs and recent digital recreations,” curator, Dr Alexandra Loske, said.
“It will give visitors an opportunity to see unfamiliar, unusual and rare images, sourced almost exclusively from the city’s own archives and collections.”
Highlights of the display are set to include images of the estate before the Royal Pavilion was built and early designs by Henry Holland, commissioned by the Prince Regent.
Digital 3D images of lost areas and structures of the Royal Pavilion Estate, depictions of fashionable Georgian society in and around the estate in watercolours, prints and drawings, and displays of the estate’s use in 20th century including in World War Two, will also feature in the exhibition.
What else is happening in Brighton?
Visions of the Royal Pavilion Estate will form part of the Royal Pavilion & Museums’ 2017 Regency Season, which will also include the exhibitions Jane Austen by the Sea at the Royal Pavilion and Constable and Brighton at Brighton Museum.
Jane Austen by the Sea, which will mark the bicentenary of Austen’s death, will take place between 17th June and 8th January 2018 and will look at the author’s time in Brighton, her relationship with coastal towns and her use of them in her novels such as Pride and Prejudice.
Meanwhile, Constable and Brighton running from 8th April until 8th October at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery will explore English painter John Constable’s time in Brighton between 1824 and 1828.
It will bring together over 60 of the artist’s sketches, drawings and paintings, which he produced in the seaside town.
For more information visit www.brightonmuseums.org.uk.
Photo credit: Colin Jones.
