'ANCIENT AND MODERN MEXICO' A 1824 EXHIBITION AT THE EGYPTIAN HALL, LONDON

a "Quetzalcoatl' plummed serpent invented sculpture, a copy of the Aztec Calendar and the Coatlicue



also at the Egyptian Hall: African Animals


and Napoleons funeral carriage


building where the Egyptian Hall used to stand in Picadilly

The first exhibition of 'Ancient and Modern Mexico' in London took place in 1824 at the Egyptian Hall in London, three years after Mexico's independence from Spain. The exhibition was organized by William Bullock, the owner of the Egyptian Hall, who in 1823 traveled to Mexico with his son, where they collected the contents of the exhibition. On display were antiquities, plants, animals, minerals, handicrafts, and complete with what was said to be the first Mexican Indian to be seen in England, all set against a panoramic view of the Valley of Mexico painted by William Bullock Jr. The exhibition was visited by nearly fifty thousand people. Plaster copies of sculptures like that of Coatlicue and the Aztec Calendar were also exhibited.

In 1825 Bullock sold the Egyptian Hall to book seller George Lackington, and took his family to live to Mexico where he had acquired a silver mine during his first visit. In 1827 Bullock bought land on the bank of the Ohio River where he attempted to build a utopian community called Hygeia...

more on the Egyptian Hall here.