Caption:

A photograph of the west end of the Crystal Palace, taken by Claude-Marie Ferrier (1811-1889) in 1851. The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, held in 1851 in the spectacular Crystal Palace built in London's Hyde Park, was the first industrial exhibition. Over 100,000 exhibits were shown from around the world. This photograph is an illustration from 'Reports by the Juries', a four-volume work on the contents of the Great Exhibition, illustrated with 155 photographs by Claude-Marie Ferrier (1811-1889) and Hugh Owen (1804-1881), published in 1852. Only 140 presentation sets of this work were produced, to be given to notables of those countries which participated in the exhibition as a record of the great event.