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Sebastiano Ricci, The Meeting of Bacchus and Ariadne, 1713-15. Oil on canvas, 2718 X 6555 mm. © Royal Academy of Arts. Photo: © RA/John Hammond.
From the ceiling of the General Assembly Room.
The large room known today as the Reynolds Room was transformed by Carr of York into a bay-windowed ballroom for the Duke of Portland after 1770.
The Reynolds Room. Photo: Paul Highnam
Ware removed the bay from the eastern wall, established the rectangular plan, inserted two new doors in the eastern wall, created the coved and compartmented ceiling, and transformed the north window to mirror the Venetian window on the southern side.
The room served as the Royal Academy’s library until 1927, thereafter being named in honour of the institution’s first president.
The Reynolds Room and Charles Darwin
On 1 July 1858, history was made in the Reynolds Room when papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were presented to a meeting of the Linnean Society. The papers put forward the ground-breaking ideas on evolutionary biology that were later made famous by Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species (1859).
Find out about free guided tours of the John Madejski Fine Rooms
The Saloon
The Lee and James C Slaughter Room
The General Assembly Room
The President's Corridor
The Reynolds Room
The Council Room
The Tennant Gallery
