FROM THE PUBLISHER

Published to accompany a unique exhibition drawn from the magnificent collection of Lord Lloyd Webber, this book is an opulent record of one man's passion for Victorian art.

Highlighting some notable exceptions -- among them Evelyn Waugh and John Betjeman -- the art historian and critic Richard Dorment describes the woeful lack of interest in Victorian art that prevailed throughout the first half of the 20th century. As he charts the gradual rise of connoisseurship in a field now vigorously championed by collectors, curators and dealers alike, he sets in context the many remarkable collections of Victorian pictures that have been formed over the last 40 years. Andrew Lloyd Webber emerges as one of the most significant collectors of works from this rich and fascinating period of British art.

Leading authorities introduce such key painters as Burne Jones Atkinson Grimshaw Millais, Alma Tadema Hughes Holman Hunt Leighton, Rossetti Tissot and Waterhouse and incisive essays cover subjects as diverse as scenes of contemporary life academics and classicists and the Victorian landscape. The decorative arts, so prominent in the Victorian art world and indeed in the Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection are also strongly represented.