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| attributed to Jean Clouet Portrait of Marguerite de Navarre ca. 1527 oil on panel Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Lucas Cranach the Elder Nymph of the Fountain 1534 oil on panel Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool proudly refers to itself as "the National Gallery of the North" and boasts that the core of the collection has been on public display in the city for the past two centuries. The present temple-like building and the attached name "Walker" go back about 130 years to a defining series of high-Victorian backers (civic worthies, for the most part, rather than aristocrats). Their standards were evidently as high as anyone could wish, and the material at their disposal was often of staggering quality, as appears below.
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| attributed to Nicholas Hilliard Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I 1573 oil on panel Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Paulus Bor Mary Magdalene ca. 1635 oil on panel Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Godfrey Kneller Portrait of King Charles II ca. 1685 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
From human pastures; or, O torturing fact!
Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd
Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe
Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge
Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight
Able to face an owl's, they still are dight
By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests,
And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount
To their spirit's perch, their being's high account,
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones –
Amid the fierce intoxicating tones
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums,
And sudden cannon.
– from Endymion (1818) by John Keats
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| Francesco Solimena Diana and Endymion ca. 1705-10 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| William Hogarth Portrait of David Garrick as King Richard III ca. 1745 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Johan Zoffany Family of Sir William Young ca. 1767-69 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Thomas Gainsborough Portrait of Isabella, Viscountess Molyneux later Countess of Sefton 1769 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Léonard Defrance Interior of a Foundry 1789 oil on panel Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Giovanni Tognolli Finding of Aesculapius ca. 1822-39 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Edward Burne-Jones Study for The Sleeping Knights ca. 1870 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| John Everett Millais The Martyr of the Solway ca. 1871 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Sir William Blake Richmond Venus and Anchises 1889 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
Anchises of Troy stood in such high favor with the goddess Venus that she bore his child, according to Ovid and Virgil. This child became the hero Aeneas. When Troy fell to the Greeks, Aeneas saved his father Anchises (who had by then become a feeble old man) by carrying him on his shoulders out of the burning city. This scene (including also Ascanius, little son of Aeneas) was represented countless times by Baroque sculptors and painters. They may or may not have idealized the participants, but they definitely relished the oddness of the piled-up figure-group.