The great British art quiz: set by National Museums Liverpool

Going down to Liverpool: Walker Art Gallery, to be precise. Photograph: Mark McNulty

This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home for the UK’s public art collections, showing art from over 3,000 venues and by 45,000 artists. Each day, a different collection on Art UK will set the questions.

Today, our questions are set by National Museums Liverpool. National Museums Liverpool comprises eight museums and galleries, including some of the most visited in the UK, outside of London. The breadth of the collections is extraordinary, containing everything from impressionist paintings and rare beetles to a lifejacket from the Titanic.

You can see art from National Museums Liverpool on Art UK here. Find out more on the National Museums Liverpool’s website here.

1. 

   Between 1777 and 1809, Henry Blundell of Ince Blundell Hall in Merseyside assembled one of the largest and most important collections of what in Britain?

   1. Fossils

   2. Roman sculpture

   3. Clocks and watches

   4. Ornithology

2. 

   Who is this Liverpudlian dramatist from the Museum of Liverpool’s collection?

   1. Alan Bleasdale

   2. Willy Russell

   3. Jimmy McGovern

   4. Pete Price

3. 

   From the Merseyside Maritime Museum collection, what did these flags in Robert Salmon’s Bidston, Wirral, Old Lighthouse and Flagpoles signify?

   1. The coronation of George IV

   2. The approach of shipping to Liverpool

   3. Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar

   4. The lighthouse keepers were out of milk

4. 

   A Bacchante was previously in the collection of the Liverpool merchant George Holt of Sudley House. It shows a woman dressed as a bacchante, who took part in the frenzied worship of Dionysus, the god of wine and intoxication. Which Victorian artist inspired by classical themes painted this picture?

   1. Edward John Poynter

   2. Lawrence Alma-Tadema

   3. Frederic Leighton

   4. Charles Edward Perugini

5. 

   George Stubbs (1724-1806) painted the Lady Lever Art Gallery’s Haycarting in 1795. What is it painted on?

   1. Wooden panel

   2. Canvas

   3. Wedgwood ceramic

   4. White glass

6. 

   William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925) was the founder of Port Sunlight and the Lady Lever Art Gallery. How did he make his fortune?

   1. Banking

   2. Soap manufacturing

   3. Cotton trading

   4. Railway development

7. 

   William Dobson (1611–1646) painted this image in the Walker Art Gallery’s collection in about 1642. It shows the execution of John the Baptist, but he copied the picture after another painting. Which artist produced the original composition?

   1. Gerard van Honthorst

   2. Matthias Stom

   3. Artemisia Gentileschi

   4. Caravaggio

8. 

   This famous late example of the Pre-Raphaelite style, The Little Foot Page, of 1905, is in the Walker Art Gallery’s collection. Who painted it?

   1. John Everett Millais

   2. Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

   3. Ford Madox Brown

   4. Emma Sandys

Solutions

1:B - Henry Blundell’s collection of nearly 600 marble and bronze sculptures was donated to Liverpool’s World Museum in 1959. It is by far the largest collection of classical sculpture in Britain outside the British Museum and probably represents the largest single personal 18th-century sculpture collection still relatively intact in the world. Henry Blundell (1724–1810), after Mather Brown (1761–1831), World Museum Liverpool, 2:B - Dramatist, playwright, composer and artist Willy Russell was painted by artist Peter Edwards in his office in Canning Street, in Liverpool city centre, in 1990. Two of Willy’s best-known plays, which were also made into hugely successful films, are Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine. His long-running musical Blood Brothers continues to entertain after many years. Willy Russell (b1947), Peter Douglas Edwards (b1935), © the artist, Museum of Liverpool, 3:B - The signalling station at Bidston lighthouse alerted merchants in Liverpool that their ships were approaching the River Mersey. The semaphore station near to Bidston lighthouse on the Wirral peninsula was built in 1763, and the combination of flags indicated the name of the ship approaching and its cargo, once the vessel had been identified by spotters on Bidston Hill. Bidston, Wirral, Old Lighthouse and Flagpoles, 1825, Robert W Salmon (1775–1851), Merseyside Maritime Museum, 4:B - Alma-Tadema specialised in scenes from everyday life in ancient Rome. Frequent visits to Italy enhanced his classical knowledge. He was famous for representing textures like the translucent quality of marble. The artist insisted that this subject should be read from the protagonist’s perspective as she awaits her lover to escort her to the revels. He emphasised that the woman was not really a bacchante, but is simply dressed as one. A Bacchante c1875, Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912), Sudley House, 5:C - The most difficult objects Wedgwood ever made were the ceramic tablets produced for the artist George Stubbs. Stubbs wanted to paint in enamel colours, which could then be fixed by firing in a kiln so that they would never fade. Technically, the large tablets were very hard to make. Stubbs paintings were not popular with artists or critics at the time, although they are now considered great treasures. Haycarting, 1795, George Stubbs (1724–1806), Lady Lever Art Gallery, 6:B - William Hesketh Lever (later Lord Leverhulme, 1851–1925) set up the firm of Lever Brothers in 1886. Lever made a fortune through selling pre-wrapped soap. Port Sunlight, the village he built for his workers, is named after his most famous brand of soap. He amassed a huge collection of art and built the Lady Lever Art Gallery to house it. Lever believed that "art can be to everyone an inspiration". William Hesketh Lever (1851–1925), 1st Viscount Leverhulme, Bt, 1920, Augustus Edwin John (1878–1961), © the artist's estate / Bridgeman Images, Lady Lever Art Gallery, 7:B - Stom painted the original version of this work in Rome between 1630–2. While we do not know exactly how it made its way to England, Dobson copied it about 10 years later while working for the exiled King Charles I in Oxford. Stom’s painting is now in the collection of the National Gallery, London. The Executioner with the Head of John the Baptist (after Matthias Stom), c1640–1643, William Dobson (1611–1646), Walker Art Gallery, 8:B - Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872-1945) studied art in London. She worked firstly as an illustrator, and from 1911 taught at the Byam Shaw School of Art. During the first world war she designed propaganda posters for the Ministry of Information and was later responsible for a number of stained glass regimental memorials. A 1901 exhibition of her paintings and watercolours saw her described as a "Pre-Raphaelite revivalist" for her detailed, naturalistic style. The Little Foot Page, 1905, Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872– 1945), Walker Art Gallery

Scores

1. 6 and above.

   Twist and shout

2. 0 and above.

   Help!

3. 3 and above.

   I feel fine