The subject of ancient polychromy was addressed in a series of major exhibits on ancient art and architecture created for the Crystal Palace at Sydenham in London in 1854. A direct successor of the first Great Exhibition of all Nations held in Hyde Park, London in 1851, the ‘Fine Arts Courts’ exhibits at Sydenham consisted of ten large-scale painted plaster reconstructions of ancient buildings and monuments, in which casts of sculptures and wall paintings were displayed. Conceived by the British designers Owen Jones and Matthew Digby Wyatt, these courts presented a historical sequence of major art styles, beginning with ancient Egypt, and including Assyrian, Greek, Pompeian, Alhambra, Byzantine, Medieval, Renaissance and Italian displays . This major public exhibition on ancient art was the first of its kind and is of great significance in the history of representing antiquity. In addition to highlighting the role of ornament in ancient art, the Fine Arts Courts emphasised the importance of colour in decorating ancient architecture and sculpture. These two features of the exhibits were critical in advancing new perspectives on ancient art and had a crucial impact on the nineteenth century understanding of particular cultures, especially that of ancient Egypt.

A highlight of Jones’s work at the Crystal Palace was the Egyptian Fine Art Court, which he created together with the artist and Egyptologist Joseph Bonomi (1796-1878). This court was a bold and triumphant statement on polychromy in ancient art, featuring brightly coloured designs on all the architectural surfaces of the display. The Egyptian Court celebrated the ways in which the ancient Egyptians used primary colours to express their mythology and engagement with the natural world. Vibrant colour schemes on the columns and walls offered a stark contrast to the Greek Court, which was dominated by white marble sculptures. Despite criticism of Jones’s bold colouring schemes for the Egyptian Court, this pioneering designer managed to achieve a radical reawakening in the perception of the past.

Colour was a major preoccupation of Owen Jones throughout his career and in his reconstruction of ancient art traditions at the Crystal Palace, and his plates on ancient styles of ornament featured in Grammar of Ornament (1856), polychromy was highlighted. Jones aimed to show how colour was a vital force that was instrumental to the manufacture of ancient art. He used luminous, prismatic hues in his historical reconstructions and design work, rejecting the prevalence of muted applications of colour in architectural interiors and exteriors. The reactions to Jones’s exhibits at the Crystal Palace reveal the extent to which the use of colour in the reconstruction of ancient monuments provoked debate in the mid nineteenth century. It also reflected an increasing concern with determining the appropriate methods for understanding and analysing colour. Art historians, philosophers, scientists and aesthetes expounded upon the qualities and contingent nature of colour, generating a complex range of ideas relating to the subject. Of great relevance to Jones’s work in the area were the discussions on the harmony of colours, where the complementary and contrasting relationships between colours were seen to create specific effects.