Manchester art treasures exhibition – Manchester Historian

“Manchester’s collection is worth almost as much as the Louvre’s” commented French art critic Théophile Thoré regarding the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857 – the largest art exhibition to be held in the UK and possibly in the world. While the British public milled pleasurably around the Exhibition’s ‘Oriental Court’, soaking in the triumphant collection of trophies seized from British colonies, public revolts against British rule erupted across India. The ‘Indian Mutiny’ was the country’s First War of Independence, resulting in over 100,000 deaths.