The Great Exhibition, 1851: Cholera by Etex

Photograph of a plaster sculpture of an allegorical group. The city of Paris is represented as a seated female figure, wearing peplos and sandals, supporting a bare-chested youth leaning on her right side and an old naked man to her left, depicted dying of cholera. The woman at the centre of the group gazes upwards, imploring Heaven to take away the plague of cholera. The sculpture by Antoine Étex (1808-88) was exhibited at the Great Exhibition. The work was surmised as 'a specimen of that class of art which, seeking to act on the feelings through the representation of mere physical suffering, may be called the Revolting, a style which appears to be little cultivated or admired except in France'.

This photograph is from Volume IV (RCIN 2800003) of ' Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851: Reports by the Juries on the Subjects in the Thirty Classes into which the Exhibition was Divided'. The incredibly successful Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, commonly known as the Great Exhibition, ran from May to October 1851. At the exhibition's conclusion, over 100 copies of the four volume 'Reports by the Juries' were distributed to foreign governments and notable participants. The reports consist of the juries' comments and assessments of the works displayed in the exhibition. The idea and decision to illustrate the reports with photographs is attributed to Prince Albert (1819-61).