Harry Furniss’s Royal Academy. “An artistic joke.” / A reproduction in Photogravure, executed by Messrs. Alfred & Charles Dawson, of the Pictures in the above Exhibition, together with the Illustrated Catalogue.

Harry Furniss's Royal Academy exhibition was shown first at the Gainsborough Gallery, 25 Old Bond Street, London, opening on 23rd April 1887. It then toured to Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Liverpool.

“Writers have been repeatedly burlesqued by other writers, and dramatists by brother dramatists, but an Art-Travesty on the large scale has probably never before been attempted. The Exhibition here reproduced, which was entitled: “HARRY FURNISS’S ROYAL ACADEMY,” and to which a preliminary notice in the Times gave the appropriate sub-title of “AN ARTISTIC JOKE,” was, as the same paper said, “a display of elaborate travesties of the works of the best-known artists of the day.” It was, in fact, a sort of Royal Academy pour rire [i.e. in jest], although, as was explained at the time, Mr. Furniss’s aim was to burlesque, not so much individual works as general style – not so much specific performances as habitual manner.

The rhythmical introduction to the Illustrated Catalogue (which is also here re-produced) so fully expressed the purpose of the “Artistic Joke,” and the spirit in which it was undertaken, that any further explanation in this place can hardly be necessary. The Burlesque was good-humoured in intention and was good-humouredly received. The Show was the artistic sensation of the Season of 1887, and the Gainsborough Gallery, where it was displayed, was for several months thronged with interested and amused spectators.

A wish has been very generally expressed that some permanent record, in a portable shape but in character consonant with the artistic purposes of the Exhibition, should be procurable by the public at large, both those who saw and those who did not see the originals at the Gainsborough Gallery and elsewhere.

To meet this wish, Mr. Furniss has prepared this Album, containing reproductions, in the finest and most expensive method of photogravure, of the eighty-seven pictures comprising the Exhibition, together with the contents of the Illustrated Catalogue.

Mr Furniss is indebted to Mr. E. J. Milliken for his friendly assistance in compiling the Catalogue, and especially in providing the verses, and other illustrative quotations.

Mr. Furniss also desires to thank Mr. Alfred Dawson for the care he has taken in producing the plates in this Album.” [Preface]