The International Exhibition of 1862 was held in South Kensington, London from 1 May to 15 November 1862. Queen Victoria did not attend the opening ceremony as she was still in morning for Prince Albert who had died the previous year.

Francis FowkeThe Crystal Palace at SydenhamJohn Gregory CraceCrace 1862Italian Gothic architectureMichel Eugène ChevreulThe Great Exhibitionaniline dyesClass II Chemical Processes and ProductsClass XXIII Woven, Spun, Felted & laid FabricsWilliam Henry PerkinmauveineMauveineDiscovery of mauveineJean-François PersozFrederick Crace CalvertRenard FrèresSilk skirt and blouse dyed with Perkin's Mauve Aniline Dye

New York Times 1862

The exhibition building was designed by the military engineer Captain Francis Fowke. As soon as the exhibition opened, the brick edifice (which no longer survives) was unfavourably compared to the Crystal Palace which had housed the 1851 Exhibition before being moved to Sydenham in 1854. The colour decoration conceived by John Gregory Crace was also sharply criticized, forcing the architect to publish a defense of his chromatic arrangement which he described as inspired by Italian Gothic and the new laws devised by Michel-Eugène Chevreul alike. This convergence of the colours of the past and the colours of modernity was also reflected in the exhibits which were intended to showcase the progress made by since the Great Exhibition of 1851. One of the key innovations in the colour field were the new rainbow of aniline dyes (represented in Class II ‘Chemical processes and products’ and Class XXIII ‘Woven, Spun, Felted & laid Fabrics when Shown as Specimens of printing & Dyeing’) invented in the wake of William Henry Perkin’s discovery of mauveine in 1856. Jean-François Persoz was a member of the jury and joint reporter with Frederick Crace Calvert for Class XXIII which awarded numerous medals to Perkin as well as to French dyers such as les Frères Renard. By 1862 most dresses worn by the visitors were already dyed in these bright new hues extracted from coal, leading the New York Times reporter for the event to claim that women would soon become ‘carboniferous’.

MintonsThe Majolica Fountain in the International Exhibition

maiolicaJohn GibsonTinted Venus

Owen Carter JonesStereographic Views of the International Exhibition of 1862

John Bellelectrotyping

But the exhibition also paid tribute to the polychromy of the past. Directly below the Eastern Dome visitors would have immediately encountered Minton’s colourful St George Fountain made of brightly coloured majolica ceramic. Another spectacular exhibit was John Gibson’s Tinted Venus for which Owen Jones designed a temple inspired by his own research on ancient Greek polychromy. Other experiments with sculptural colour included John Bell’s bronze electrotype of the Daughter of Eve representing an enslaved African woman. 

Augustus PuginWilliam BurgesThe Great Bookcase

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co

The Medieval Court of 1851 designed by Augustus Pugin had been such a success that another was planned for 1862. The architect William Burges was in charge of the displays which included neo-Gothic painted furniture, such as Burges’s own Great Bookcase and the King René’s honeymoon Cabinet designed by the new firm Morris, Marshall Faulkner & Co. 

But for Burges who admired the arts and crafts of contemporary pre-industrialised countries, the Middle Ages were most truly represented at the Japanese Court which offered Western visitors one the first opportunities to discover the culture of Japan. 

In many ways, the International Exhibition of 1862 was a major chromatic event which was also one of the first to be widely recorded in colour thanks to tinted views of the exhibition by the London Stereoscopic Company or the chromolithographic plates of J.B. Waring’s three-volume Masterpieces of Industrial Art & Sculpture at the International Exhibition, 1862.