Royal Gallery of Illustration, 14, Regent Street, Pall Mall … Grand Moving Diorama, illustrating The Wellington Campaigns, with the additional pictures, The Lying in State; Funeral Procession; and Interior of St. Paul’s …

At head: Three Exhibitions Daily, during the Christmas Holidays, at 12, 3, and 8 o’Clock. London : printed by T. Brettell, Rupert Street, Haymarket, [December 1852]. Handbill, 218 x 142 mm, lithograph-printed recto only; early inscribed date of January 1853 to bottom margin; a fine example.

The Duke of Wellington’s state funeral was held on 18 November 1852. It is estimated that close to a million people watched the massive procession make its way from Horse Guards to St Paul’s Cathedral, where the Duke was buried. This handbill for the Royal Gallery of Illustration in Pall Mall advertises not only the Grand Moving Diorama of Wellington’s campaigns, but also dioramas of the Duke lying in state in Royal Hospital Chelsea, the funeral procession, and the service in St. Paul’s. These dioramas were all collaboratively designed by artists John Absolon (1815-1895), William Telbin (1815-1873), and Thomas Grieve (1799-1882), joint-owners of a scene-painting workshop in Macklin Street, off Drury Lane.

Altick, The Shows of London, p. 207