Which literary character inspired this painting? The great British art quiz

Painting by John Collier. Photograph: Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery

This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home for the UK’s public art collections, showing art from more than 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 Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery. The museum houses a rich and fascinating collection of paintings, Japanese prints, Christian icons, medieval manuscripts, natural history specimens, Egyptian artefacts, coins and the local and social history of its home town. In addition to existing collections, generous bequests from Thomas Boys Lewis and Robert Edward Hart have helped to create a diverse and renowned collection. You can see art from Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery on Art UK here. Find out more on the museum’s website here.

1. 

   Blackburn-born Albert Neilson ‘Monkey’ Hornby was the first of only two men to captain the English national side of which two sports?

   1. Cricket and football

   2. Cricket and rugby

   3. Cricket and field hockey

   4. Cricket and lacrosse

2. 

   Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery holds one of the largest collections of Japanese prints outside of London, including work by artists Hokusai, Hiroshige and Koryūsai. Which of these facts about Hokusai is untrue?

   1. He changed his name regularly

   2. He was expelled from the school that trained him

   3. He created up to 10,000 works

   4. He was the first artist to use the term ‘manga’

3. 

   Mother and Child (Cherries) by Lord Frederic Leighton was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1865 and is an important work in his Venice series. Whose tomb did Leighton design?

   1. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

   2. Mary Shelley

   3. Alfred Lord Tennyson

   4. Edward Lear

4. 

   Originally bequeathed to Whalley Abbey, Blackburn’s collection of religious icons were purchased by the museum in 1971. The icons contain an abundance of symbolic imagery – what does a cloth draped between two buildings represent?

   1. The unification of two nations

   2. The inside of a building

   3. Eternal life

   4. A sacred space

5. 

   Saint George features on a large number of icons. Which of the following is Saint George not a patron of?

   1. Scouting

   2. Soldiers

   3. Syphilis

   4. Stonecutters

6. 

   James Sharples was a working blacksmith who painted The Forge in 1849. Untrained as a painter, he also designed the emblem and membership certificate for which new trade union in 1852?

   1. The Friendly Society of Ironfounders of England, Ireland and Wales

   2. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Machinists, Millwrights, Smiths and Pattern Makers

   3. The British Iron, Steel and Kindred Trades Association

   4. The Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourer's Union of Great Britain and Ireland

7. 

   Hetty Sorrel by John Collier was based on a scene from a novel by which author?

   1. Charles Dickens

   2. Jane Austen

   3. George Eliot

   4. Charlotte Brontë

8. 

   Laying the Foundation Stone by Vladimir Osipovich Sherwood depicts the day that work began on Blackburn Cotton Exchange in 1863. Charles Dickens made a public appearance at Blackburn Cotton Exchange on 19 April 1869. Which of his novels did Dickens read?

   1. Oliver Twist

   2. A Tale of Two Cities

   3. David Copperfield

   4. A Christmas Carol

Solutions

1:B - Hornby was one of the best-known sportsmen of the 19th century. He won nine caps for England at rugby and was the England captain in the Test match from which the Ashes began. He also played briefly for the Blackburn Rovers football club. Image: AN Hornby (1847-1925), 1893, John Collier (1850-1934). Credit: Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, 2:C - Hokusai was a prolific artist and is believed to have created more than 30,000 works, although a large number were lost in a fire at his home. He is one of the first to use the term ‘manga’, when he created ‘Hokusai Manga' in 1811, although it is aesthetically different to the modern equivalent. It is also believed that Hokusai used at least 30 different names, which was a way of distinguishing between different periods of artistic production. Image: The Courtesan Chiogi of Okiya House in the Yoshiwara, from Models for Fashions: New Designs as Fresh as Young Leaves, 1760-1780, Isoda Koryusai (1735-90). Credit: Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, 3:A - Elizabeth’s husband, Robert Browning, never saw the completed tombstone because he left Florence following her death and never returned. Leighton was evidently angered by changes made to the design of the tombstone while it was being constructed and delayed its installation by more than three years until it was built to his liking. Image: Mother and Child, 1865, Frederic Leighton (1830-96). Credit: Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, 4:B - Traditionally, all activity in icons seems to be depicted as taking place outside. But cloth draped on rooftops and between buildings indicates that the events are actually happening inside the building. Image: Icon of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, c1500, unknown artist. Credit: Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, 5:D - During the medieval period, Saint George was one of the ‘Fourteen Holy Helper’ saints believed to protect during epidemics. As a result, he became associated with several infectious diseases, including syphilis. He was tortured, imprisoned and killed by the Romans for protesting against their persecution of Christians. Image: Saint George and the Dragon, mid-19th century, unknown artist. Credit: Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, 6:B - James Sharples worked in a forge in Blackburn for his entire adult life. He would wake up at 3am every day to paint before starting work as a blacksmith at 5am. This painting is not an idealised version of a forge – it is a true representation of the heat, dirt and backbreaking labour of a forge depicted by somebody who knew the reality. Image: The Forge, 1847, James Sharples (1825-93). Credit: Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, 7:C - It depicts a scene from the novel Adam Bede by George Eliot at the point when Hetty Sorrel has abandoned her newborn baby in the woods. The book was published in 1859 under the male pseudonym used by Mary Ann Evans. Image: Hetty Sorrel, John Collier (1850-1934). Credit: Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, 8:D - The first wing of the Blackburn Cotton Exchange opened in April 1865 but the building was never completed due to the catastrophic decline in trade during the cotton famine of the 1860s. Blackburn was one of the towns included in Dickens’ 1868-69 farewell tour. It was to be his penultimate public reading outside of London before his death on 9 June 1870. Image: Laying the Foundation Stone to the Cotton Exchange, Blackburn, c1863, Vladimir Ossipovitch Sherwood (1832-97). Credit: Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery

Scores

1. 7 and above.

   Beltin'!

2. 8 and above.

   Beltin'!

3. 6 and above.

   Beltin'!

4. 5 and above.

   Proper reet good!

5. 4 and above.

   Proper reet good!

6. 3 and above.

   Proper reet good!

7. 2 and above.

   Better luck next time!

8. 1 and above.

   Better luck next time!

9. 0 and above.

   Better luck next time!