Victorian Era Exhibitions of Ornamental Turning

OT Exhibitions in the Victorian Era

Public exhibitions of ornamental turning during the Victorian Era primarily occured at international fairs and museums. Below are some of the earliest known exhibitions.

  • 1840 - Preston Exhibition of Works of Art, Models, Mechanics, etc. (may have included OT items)
  • 1851 - London International
  • 1852 - State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia opens to the public (Nartov lathes)
  • 1862 - London International
  • 1865 - Preston Exhibition of Works of Art, Models, Mechanics, etc. (may have included OT items)
  • 1872 - London International
  • 1875 - Preston Exhibition of Works of Art, Models, Mechanics, etc. (a rose engine and eccentric turning lathe shown by Robert Robinson a local engineer and toolmaker may have originally been one of Louis XVI as per Olga Baird article)
  • 1876 - South Kensington Science Museum
  • 1900 - Exposition Universelle, Paris (15 Apr. to 12 Nov. 1900) (first Fabergé exhibition)

If you want a tool to be the centre of all manner of tinkering and mending, or for exercise that is gentle and cheap, or for calling the mind off from anxiety or hard thinking, or for healthful and artistic creations, I know of no instrument to be compared to the Lathe. It is easily kept in order, and the results are so quick, so varied, and so beautiful, that you never get tired of it.

Reverend John Todd (1870)
Turners of the Victorian Era
Toolmakers of the Victorian Era
Exhibitions in the Victorian Era