Drawing on primary and secondary materials, this is a sociological interpretation of the rise of metropolitan art institutions and their role in modernism and the modernization of art in England. It explores the complex relationships between the artist as creator, notions of class and taste, and the power of institutions (academies, museums, workshops, exhibitions, art dealers and publishing houses) to enable or constrain creativity, and to reflect and shape artistic expression. In particular, it looks at the experiences of submerged artists (for example, reproductive engravers and the Chantrey artists) and their interpretations of the changing art world. The radicalism of engravers and their claim to be artists is an important and neglected aspect of the 19th-century art world; and the aesthetic dispute over the Chantrey Bequest epitomized conflicts of taste, cultural dependence and interdependence between opposed art institutions and the Treasury.