The institution, now endowed with the paintings that had belonged to Sir Robert Peel, began steadily to approach towards the dimensions and the dignity of an Art Gallery comparable with that of any other capital in the world. Nor probably have its perfections or its premises yet reached their final limit.
While this was going on in London, the entire provinces were vigorously taking their part in the new movement. The death of the Duchess of Gloucester in 1857 was not allowed by the Queen's representative to interfere with his opening in that year the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, the completeness of which was largely due to the Royal encouragement to private owners to send their statues and paintings to the show. Thirty years later the Jubilee anniversary of 1887 was observed in the same city by a like display of the creations of British genius. Then the objects exhibited were the property no longer of the leisured, or a patrician class. They belonged also to the new patrons whom, during less than half a century, success in manufacture and commerce, accompanied by the liberal agencies of travel and education have stimulated to competition with the social order whose exclusive appanage art encouragement once was. The material proof of art progress is the increase of art values. Many instances of these were given in an earlier chapter. During his lifetime David Cox was glad to sell his landscapes for £20. Cox had formed his genius amid the rural scenes of Hereford. He never liked London. After living there fourteen years he settled at Birmingham. Here, during his lifetime he had the satisfaction of seeing his masterpiece in oil colour bought for £40. Ten years later, when the painter was dead, it secured £50 in the open market. In the early seventies a Birmingham manufacturer, the former partner of Mr Chamberlain gave for it £2,300. In the same way De Wint's landscapes during his lifetime seldom commanded more than £50. To-day they sometimes fetch £1,000, and are reckoned cheap at 700 or 800 guineas.
The social consideration, and with it the commercial possibilities, of any professional calling have in England always been regulated by its degree of connection with the State. The department of practical art established at South Kensington with the encouragement of the Prince Consort under the Directorship of Mr Henry Cole in 1852 had no sooner expanded into the science and art department under the President of the Council instead of under the Board of Trade than the social repute of practitioners in all branches of decorative art appreciably improved.