Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet,, was a British Conservative statesman who twice was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and simultaneously was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1834–1835). He previously was Home Secretary twice. He is regarded as the father of modern British policing, owing to his founding of the Metropolitan Police Service while he was Home Secretary. Peel was one of the founders of the modern Conservative Party.
Sir Thomas Lawrence was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at the Bear Hotel in the Market Square. At age ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his pastel portraits. At 18, he went to London and soon established his reputation as a portrait painter in oils, receiving his first royal commission, a portrait of Queen Charlotte, in 1789. He stayed at the top of his profession until his death, aged 60, in 1830.
Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorians and for illustrative images depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature.
Frederick John Robinson, 1st Earl of Ripon,, styled The Honourable F. J. Robinson until 1827 and known between 1827 and 1833 as The Viscount Goderich, the name by which he is best known to history, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1827 to 1828.
Sir Charles Lock Eastlake was a British painter, gallery director, collector and writer of the 19th century. After a period as keeper, he was the first director of the National Gallery. From 1850 to 1865 he served as President of the Royal Academy, succeeding Martin Archer Shee in the role.
Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool, styled The Honourable Charles Jenkinson between 1786 and 1828, was a British politician.
Sir William Boxall was an English painter and museum director.
Henry William Pickersgill RA was an English painter specialising in portraits. He was a Royal Academician for almost fifty years, and painted many of the most notable figures of his time.
Valerie Susan, Lady Meux, was a Devon-born socialite of the Victorian era. She was the wife of Sir Henry Bruce Meux, 3rd Baronet (1856–1900), who came from one of Britain’s richest brewing dynasties, Meux’s Brewery, founded in 1764, which was a major brewer of porter ale in London in the 19th century.
Portrait of Sir Thomas More is an oak panel painting created in 1527 by the German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger, now in the Frick Collection in New York.
Portrait of Lady Meux is a name given to several full-length portraits by James McNeill Whistler. Valerie Susan Meux, née Langdon, was a Victorian socialite and the wife of the London brewer, Sir Henry Meux. She claimed to have been an actress, but was apparently on the stage for only a single season. She is believed to have met Sir Henry at the Casino de Venise in Holborn, where she worked as a banjo-playing barmaid and prostitute under the name Val Reece.
Frederick Richard Say was a notable society portrait painter in London between c. 1830 and c.1860, undertaking commissions for portraits of figures such as Earl Grey, Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington and the Royal family.
Lady Agnew of Lochnaw is an oil on canvas portrait painting of Gertrude Agnew, the wife of Sir Andrew Agnew, 9th Baronet. The painting was commissioned in 1892 and completed the same year by the American portrait artist John Singer Sargent. It measures 127 × 101 cm (50.0 × 39.8 in) and is owned by the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. The museum acquired it through the Cowan Smith Bequest Fund in 1925.
Portrait of Hylck Boner is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted in 1635 and now in the Frick Collection. It is considered a pendant to the portrait of Hylck's husband Johannes Saeckma.
Virginia Purdy Bacon was an American heiress and art dealer.
Laurence Peel was a British Tory politician and the younger brother of Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Laurence was described by one historian as "the youngest and least talented, but perhaps the most personally attractive of the Peel brothers".
Julia, Lady Peel was the wife of the British politician and Prime Minister Robert Peel. She was considered "remarkable for personal beauty" and was captured in the 1827 portrait Portrait of Julia, Lady Peel.
Mary Edwards of Kensington was an English heiress and art patron who was said to be the richest woman in England. She reportedly married but later tried to remove any evidence of the ceremony. She lived with Lord Anne Hamilton for several years and they had a child, but he married again, without a divorce.
Louisa Theodosia Jenkinson, Countess of Liverpool was a British noblewoman and the first wife of Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, who served as prime minister from 1812 to 1827.
Portrait of Sir Robert Peel is an 1838 portrait painting by the English artist John Linnell of the British politician Sir Robert Peel.
