Gothic revival buildings and sentimental portraits of a young queen: the first part of the Victorian era set the stage for the rest of the century.
1837 - 1848
videos + essays
A new queen, a new building for Parliament, and the promise and peril of a new era powered by science and industry.
Charles Barry and A.W.N. Pugin, Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament)
Unsettled by industrialization and the ugliness of the modern world, Victorians looked back to the Gothic style.
Robert Smirke, The British Museum
The visual vocabulary of classical antiquity was well-suited to the the British Empire’s temple of knowledge.
Sir Edwin Landseer, Windsor Castle in Modern Times
A tribute to home, hearth, and hounds, this painting hung in Queen Victoria’s sitting room and earned her praise.