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The Gallery holds the most extensive collection of portraits in the world. Search over 215,000 works, 150,000 of which are illustrated from the 16th Century to the present day.

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Victorian & Edwardian posts

Without her lacy cap: Researching images of Florence Nightingale

A mansion in leafy Buckinghamshire is an odd place to find portraits of Florence Nightingale, since for much of her life after the Crimean War she was too ill to leave London. But by the 1880s she was sufficiently recovered to visit (with cats) her older sister Parthenope Verney at Claydon House. In the Rococo and Gothic glory of that house Florence had her own suite, and the privacy to work and to write.…

By Carol Blackett-Ord, Researcher (Later Victorian Catalogue)

13 November 2014

George Frederic Watts, a Victorian International Artist

In 1884 the life’s work of one of England’s greatest painters sailed across the Atlantic to America for an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This fascinating story of international art lending is just one of many to be found in the correspondence of George Frederic Watts.…

By Ruth Benny, Archive Cataloguer

12 December 2013

How might a Victorian gentleman go about asking for a better salary? One approach was by writing an extremely tactful letter.

Today there are over 200 members of staff at the Gallery but Sir George Scharf its first Director, was something of a one man band. Appointed in 1857, his role was all encompassing. He fulfilled the roles of Visitor Services Assistant, Building Officer, Curator, Accountant, Librarian, Cataloguer and Researcher. Scharf also travelled extensively, sketching potential acquisitions and creating hundreds of sketchbooks filled with images of portraits, collections, people and places.…

By Bryony Millan, Senior Archive & Library Manager

23 January 2013