Summary: George Lance (1802–1864) brought new vibrancy to still life painting in the early Victorian period. In his seminal work Victorian Painting (1966) Graham Reynolds stated that the revival of still life painting, as an artist’s main preoccupation, was effected almost single-handedly by Lance. Over one hundred years earlier J.M.W. Turner had expressed the view that Lance was one of the three greatest colourists of his era (after himself of course). Lance’s star was eclipsed in the ensuing years, overtaken by the Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists and subsequent schools. His reputation has never regained the heights it attained in the 1850s. This book, the first biography of Lance to be written, seeks to rectify this injustice. Lance was a pupil of the contumacious and ultimately tragic B.R. Haydon, a titanic figure in the Regency art world. Lance drew his inspiration from the Dutch and Flemish Old Masters, adopting many of their motifs. His work was purchased by some of the greatest aristocrats and industrialists of the time, while links to Liverpool through his son-in-law enabled him to sell to the cotton barons of Lancashire. He was never elected to the Royal Academy, a mystery to contemporary commentators but perhaps due to his confrontation with the political establishment following his ‘restoration’ of Velazquez’s Royal Boar Hunt (now hanging in the National Gallery). His popularity with his fellow artists, however, was never in doubt. Lavishly illustrated with Lance’s works and detailing other aspects of his life, this book gives a rounded picture of the man, not just the artist, and will serve as the definitive record of the life of a much under-appreciated painter.

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