John Julius Angerstein, Founder of Lloyd’s and of the National Gallery
Christopher Lloyd profiles a highly successful businessman of modest and abstemious habits, John Julius Angerstein, who formed a magnificent collection, the nucleus of London’s National Gallery, at his house in Pall Mall.
Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of John Julius Angerstein occupies pride of place today in the Nelson Room at Lloyd’s. He regarded it as one of his best pictures, and took it with him to Rome to show the Pope in order to establish his reputation as a portrait painter. A copy of it was commissioned by George IV soon after Angerstein’s death; and this was presented to the National Gallery by King William IV.
It is appropriate that Lawrence’s portrait of the man he called his “constant and revered friend” should hang in both institutions, because Angerstein was virtually the founder of the modem Lloyd’s of London, and it was on his collection of pictures that the National Gallery was based.
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