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Art Fund Popular Portraits

34 Portraits in set

Objects purchased using an Art Fund New Collecting Award to acquire popular, global and ephemeral portraits for the National Portrait Gallery. Commenced in 2017, this project aims to collect portraits made, owned, displayed and viewed by ordinary people from the medieval period to the present. With a particular focus on pre-1600 material, it explores the ways in which identity was understood and expressed before painted portraiture arrived in Britain in the sixteenth century. Other themes, including ceramic as a medium for portraiture, social and cultural diversity and national heroes will be explored up to the present day. The project aims to demonstrate the impact of portraiture on our everyday visual experience by collecting objects with a range of functions from propaganda to memorialisation.

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Unknown sitter ('Bronze relief with bearded face')

by Unknown artist
bronze relief
NPG D48195

Unknown sitter ('Floor tile with an image of a king or queen')

by Unknown artist
earthenware floor tile, lead-glazed, 14th century
NPG D48194

Unknown man ('carved wooden roof boss')

by Unknown artist
carved elm roof boss, 15th century
On display in Room 1 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG D48634

King William III; Queen Mary II

by Unknown artist
tin-glazed earthenware, painted, circa 1689-1695
On display in Room 7 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG D48625

William Shakespeare

by Derby Porcelain Factory
soft paste porcelain, circa 1770
NPG D48654

Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

by Unknown artist
lead glazed and printed earthenware, circa 1820
NPG D48191

Billy Waters

by Unknown artist
glazed earthenware, circa 1840
On display in Room 13 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG D48192

Ellen Eliza Blight (Bright) ('Death of the Lion Queen')

by Unknown artist
glazed earthenware, circa 1850
On display in Room 13 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG D48193

William Shakespeare

by Unknown artist
Staffordshire pottery bust, circa 1860s
On display in Room 13 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG D48655

Queen Victoria

by Unknown artist
transfer-printed and hand-coloured earthenware, 1887
NPG D48622

Queen Victoria; Britannia; King Edward VII with six human figures representing imperial subjects and two scenes of imperial expeditions

by Wallis Gimson & Co.
transfer-printed and hand-coloured earthenware, 1887
NPG D48623

David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty; Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig

by Royal Winton
printed pottery, 1919
NPG D48624

Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (King Edward VIII)

designed by Dame Laura Knight, manufactured by Burgess & Leigh Limited (Burleigh)
printed and painted earthenware, 1936
On display in Room 13 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG D48190