Lever Art Gallery

▪ museum, Bebington, England, United Kingdom

in full  Lady Lever Art Gallery,  

      in Port Sunlight, a model village founded for workers in Bebington, Cheshire (now in Merseyside), Eng. The museum was a gift to the public of the 1st Viscount Leverhulme, as a memorial to his wife, who died in 1913. The building was begun in 1914 and opened in December 1922. The collection of works exhibited at the gallery was formed by Lord Leverhulme and records his personal taste, which was strongly biased in favour of British works, especially of the Victorian period. There is also a very fine collection of Chinese ceramics and a collection of Napoleonic relics, including a bronze death mask of Napoleon. The gallery also has a superb collection of English furniture and an unrivaled collection of Wedgwood ware. There are important paintings by members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their followers including John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Frederic Leighton, and Ford Madox Brown. There is an important series of 18th-century portraits, including examples by Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, and John Hoppner.

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