3-053-472 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Hard Pressed", diploma picture by R. Ansdell, R.A., 1873. 'The picture we engrave "tells its own tale" as regards the subject with a degree of spirit and truth which requires no enforcement, and Mr. Ansdell's technical characteristics must be quite familiar to our readers. But the work has the additional interest of being the artist's "diploma picture" - that is to say, it is presented to the Royal Academy upon Mr. Ansdell receiving his diploma of full Academician...Such samples of the powers of each artist that has been admitted into the pale of "the Forty" should, in course of time, and if adequately representative, form a most interesting epitome of the history of British art since 1768...the Academy diploma pictures formed, till recent years, but a semi-private collection; they were placed in the meeting-rooms of the Academicians, and rarely seen by the public...In the new building in Piccadilly (which, by-the-way, is rapidly approaching completion), in those portions not appropriated for the ordinary exhibitions, a gallery is set apart for the diploma works, to which the public is to be admitted, and we have no doubt that the arrangement will act as an incentive to future R. A.s elect to contribute their best productions'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.