Back in the 1970s and 1980s, no Merseyside living room was complete without a framed reproduction of one of John Atkinson Grimshaw's scenes of Liverpool docks.
The Victorian artist was much loved for his atmospheric nocturnal images, which induced a warm rosy glow of nostalgia.
They were always tastefully done and never intrusive. Indeed it was their very familiarity which helped make them so popular. The lights of the shop fronts glowing softly through the fog, along with the masts of the ships, the carriages and carts, all evoked a cosy feeling of times gone by.
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Grimshaw was born in Leeds in 1836 and is now considered one of the great painters of the Victorian age, as well as one of the best and most accomplished nightscape and townscape artists of all time.
The city of Liverpool, which he captured in its Victorian heyday, held a special place in his work. The scenes were undoubtedly prettified and showed none of the harsh realities of the time - but this only added to their charm.
Grimshaw was entirely self-taught, and began life as a railway clerk. His original works are now held by such prestigious galleries as Tate Britain and also fetch huge sums when they come up for auction - one sold for £540,000 at Sotheby's back in 2006.
National Museums Liverpool (NML) owns two of his works which are usually on show at the Walker Art Gallery. They are both of the old Custom House and were painted between 1880 and 1890.
NML's head of fine art Ann Bukantas said: "His atmospherically lit scenes, often of docksides, employed a particular colour palette that created a sense of nostalgia even in its day.
"They did not reveal any of the harsh realities of these areas, such as people struggling to make a living. Instead they give an appealing, romanticised image, bathed in moonlight, and lack the attention to detail of his early work.
"The visual formula that he created became popular in his own time, and remains so today – he created one of the most visually recognisable styles of any British artist, and even gave rise to copycat followers."
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