The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1822 was the annual Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. It was held at Somerset House between 6 May and 13 July 1822 and featured over a thousand exhibits.
By far the most popular attraction on display was Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch by the Scottish artist David Wilkie. Commissioned by the Duke of Wellington and having taken several years to complete, it required a railing to be erected to hold back the crowds.
The President of the Royal Academy Thomas Lawrence exhibited several works notably his Portrait of George IV in his coronation robes as well as Emily Anderson as Little Red Riding Hood. Also on display were his depictions of the Duke of Wellington of the Russian general Portrait of Mikhail Vorontsov. His painting of the fashionable Irish aristocrat Portrait of the Countess of Blessington was widely praised. His fellow portrait painter William Beechey's Victoria, Duchess of Kent with Princess Victoria showed the future Queen Victoria as a child with her mother.
J.M.W. Turner submitted only a single work What You Will! a homage to the style of the French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau. John Constable's chief exhibit was the landscape View on the Stour near Dedham, one of his "six-footers" featuring a rural view on the River Stour in Suffolk. As with The Hay Wain at the Exhibition of 1821, this attracted limited interest only to achieve great success once it appeared at the Salon of 1824 in France. Augustus Wall Callcott displayed Smugglers Alarmed, a mixture of landscape and genre work.
<Gallery Mode="packed" Heights="200"> File:Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) - George IV (1762-1830) - RCIN 405918 - Royal Collection.jpg|Portrait of George IV by Thomas Lawrence File:Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington by Thomas Lawrence.jpg|Portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Thomas Lawrence File:The Wallace Collection (39544232701).jpg|Portrait of the Countess of Blessington by Thomas Lawrence File:Michail Woronzow.JPG|Portrait of Mikhail Vorontsov by Thomas Lawrence File:Emily Anderson as Little Red Riding Hood.png|Little Red Riding Hood by Thomas Lawrence File:Constable, View on the Stour near Dedham.jpg|View on the Stour near Dedham by John Constable File:John Constable - Malvern Hall.jpg|Malvern Hall by John Constable File:Constable - View of Lower Terrace, Hampstead, c.1822, 584-1888.jpg|View of Lower Terrace, Hampstead by John Constable File:Constable - Trees at Hampstead The Path to Church, 1821, 1630-1888.jpg|Trees at Hampstead by John Constable File:Sir William Beechey (1753-1839) - Victoria, Duchess of Kent, (1786-1861) with Princess Victoria, (1819-1901) - RCIN 407169 - Royal Collection.jpg|Victoria, Duchess of Kent with Princess Victoria by William Beechey File:John Jackson (1778-1831) - Frederick, Duke of York (1763-1827) - RCIN 407119 - Royal Collection.jpg|Portrait of the Duke of York by John Jackson File:Turner - What You Will!, 1822, 2007.8.107.jpg|What You Will! by J.M.W. Turner File:Smugglers Alarmed.png|Smugglers Alarmed by Augustus Wall Callcott File:Edward Villiers Rippingille (1822) - The Recruiting Party - Bristol Museum.jpg|The Recruiting Party by Edward Villiers Rippingille File:James Northcote (1746-1831) - Princess Bridget Plantagenet (1480âÂÂ1517), Dedicated to the Nunnery at Dartford - 486142 - National Trust.jpg|Princess Bridget Plantagenet Dedicated to the Nunnery at Dartford by James Northcote File:George Jones (1786-1869) - The Battle of Waterloo - RCIN 407187 - Royal Collection.jpg|The Battle of Waterloo by George Jones File:Bristol museum statue female.JPG|Eve at the Fountain by Edward Hodges Baily </gallery>