The article analyses the ways in which the exhibitions held between 1815 and 1900 were represented in some of the most important European illustrated journals published in Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy. In addition to aiming at a comparative perspective, and hence at the dialectics between the national viewpoint and the international dimension, this contribution examines the specific usage of the iconic message and the ways in which it became integrated into – or developed parallel to – the complex texture of the journals themselves.