Victorian London: Mapping the Emergence of the Modern Art Gallery: Pamela M. Fletcher

Shepherd Brothers

An advertisement in the Athenaeum on 19 February1881 announced “Shepherd Brothers, Art Commission Agents and Picture Dealers, Nottingham, beg to announce that their London Picture Gallery is Now Open, at 27, King-street, St. James’s, S.W. (opposite Messrs. Christie and Manson’s) – Choice works On View by Henry Dawson, sen., T. S. Cooper, R.A., E. J. Niemann, L. J. Pott, Ernest Parton, Marcus Stone, A.R.A., Noble, Starke, Jutsum, &c” (1). The gallery held regular spring and winter exhibitions of “selected pictures by early British masters and modern painters” from at least 1883 until 1913. The Shepherd Brothers retired in 1913, and the gallery was taken over by Palser and Son. A notice in the Times commented on the transition: “Shepherd’s Galleries. – The well-known picture galleries of Messrs. Shepherd Brothers, at 27, King-street, St. James’s-square, opposite Messrs. Christie’s, which for more than a generation have been a pleasant hunting-ground for collectors of early English pictures, has been taken by the old-established firm of Messrs. J. Palser and Sons, of King-street, Covent Garden. Messrs. Shepherd Brothers retired from business a few months ago, and we understand that their stock will be sold at Messrs. Christie’s in due course. The house of Palser was established a century or more ago on the Surrey side of the river, chiefly dealing in and publishing engravings. Of recent years, Messrs. Palser have dealt largely in water-colour and other drawings by English artists, and their new and more central premises will enable them to branch out into other departments of the trade in pictures.”
(2 December 1913, 13.)

Address: 27 King-street

Start Date: by 1882 [1881]*

End Date: by 1912 [1913]*

Selected exhibitions

Winter exhibition of high-class pictures (1883) [NAL]

Spring exhibition of selected pictures by early British masters and modern painters (1897) [NAL]

Exhibition catalogues: National Art Library, London (1883-1913)

*The dates that appear in the heading are those identified as securely documented “start” and “end” dates when the map animation was created. Additional research has extended the time span that the gallery can be documented at this address.