Also called the British Gallery, the British Institution was the first significant exhibition society in London to rival the Royal Academy of Arts. Its first exhibition was held in 1806 in the premises formerly occupied by John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery at 52 Pall Mall, and in early years it acted as a kind of supplement to the Royal Academy, many artists showing in both places. Turner sent The Goddess of Discord choosing the apple of contention in the garden of the Hesperides (Turner Bequest, Tate Britain, Wilton P57) to the opening exhibition, and Apullia in search of Appullus (Turner Bequest, Tate Britain, Wilton P128) in 1814. Some individual paintings attracted great attention, the receipts from viewers of Benjamin West's Christ Healing the Sick in 1812 all but recouping the price of 3,000 guineas paid for the picture by the Institution.
In 1813 a retrospective exhibition of Sir Joshua Reynolds 's work was mounted, and there developed a pattern of two exhibitions a year, one of living artists and the other of Old Masters. It lost favour with contemporary painters after 1816, but its fortunes later revived, and Turner began to exhibit there again, beginning in 1835 with The Burning of the House of Lords and Commons, 16th of October 1834 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Wilton P359).