The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1777 was an art exhibition held in London from 24 April to 29 May 1777. It was the ninth annual Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy of Arts and took place at Pall Mall. It featured submissions from top artists and architects of the Georgian era and was held during the American War of Independence, although it did not feature paintings of the conflict as a major theme.https://chronicle250.com/1777
The exhibition was notable for the return of Thomas Gainsborough who had been boycotting the Academy since 1773, despite having been a founder member.https://chronicle250.com/1777#catalogue His submissions were generally compared favourably to those of the President of the Royal Academy Sir Joshua Reynolds. Gainsborough's proto-Romantic landscape The Watering Place won widespread praise and Horace Walpole described it as "the finest landscape ever painted in England".McIntyre p.318 His portraits included the composer Carl Friedrich Abel and his Portrait of Mary Graham. McIntyre p.318-19 Gainsborough also displayed pendant full-length portraits of the King's younger brother Henry, Duke of Cumberland and his wife Anne Horton whose wedding had led to the passing of the Royal Marriages Act.https://www.rct.uk/collection/405936/henry-frederick-duke-of-cumberland-1745-90
The American John Singleton Copley exhibited a group portrait of his relatives The Copley Family.Hand p.286 William Hodges displayed landscape paintings based on his experiences accompanying the Second voyage of James Cook. Angelica Kauffmann showed five paintings including Maria Near Moulines based on Laurence Sterne's Sentimental Journey.Moyle p.107 Amongst the works displayed by Joshua Reynolds was a full-length portrait of the Countess of Derby commissioned by her husband the Twelfth Earl, which was later destroyed by him when she left him.McIntyre p.320 In general Reynolds faced a number of partisan attacks over the quality of his output, notably from Henry Bate Dudley.McIntyre p.318-20
Gallery
See also Salon of 1777, held at the Louvre in Paris
References
Bibliography Hamilton, James. Gainsborough: A Portrait. Hachette UK, 2017. Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. National Gallery of Art, 2004. Kamensky, Jane. A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley. W. W. Norton & Company, 2016. McIntyre, Ian. Joshua Reynolds: The Life and Times of the First President of the Royal Academy. Allen Lane, 2003. Moyle, Franny. Mrs Kauffman and Madame Le Brun: The Entwined Lives of Two Great Eighteenth-Century Women Artists. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025.