Collections
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© National Portrait Gallery, London |
Welcome to the Collections Search page. From here, you can find information about portrait collections in museums, archives, libraries and private collections throughout the UK.
To add an entry on your collection, public or private, please visit our Resources page.
Update July 2010
We apologise for the delay in adding new collection descriptions to this resource, due to ongoing technical upgrades. We hope to have full funtionality by the end of this month.
The following collections will be added shortly:
* The Society of Apothecaries
* The Royal College of Nursing
* The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons
* Leeds Art Gallery
* Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate
* St Bartholomew's Hospital
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© National Portrait Gallery, London |
Welcome to the Collections Search page. From here, you can find information about portrait collections in museums, archives, libraries and private collections throughout the UK.
To add an entry on your collection, public or private, please visit our Resources page.
Update July 2010
We apologise for the delay in adding new collection descriptions to this resource, due to ongoing technical upgrades. We hope to have full funtionality by the end of this month.
The following collections will be added shortly:
* The Society of Apothecaries
* The Royal College of Nursing
* The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons
* Leeds Art Gallery
* Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate
* St Bartholomew's Hospital
86 records found
Aberdeen Art Gallery: Portraits
Over 1000 portraits including many artist's portraits and self portraits, accessible through Aberdeen Art Gallery's website: http://www.aagm.co.uk/code/emuseum.asp
Axbridge and District Museum: Portraits in the collection of Axbridge and District Museum
Portraits in the collection of Axbridge and District Museum; one oil painting - the portrait of Richard Trew, 1867, clerk to the Board of Trustees of Axbridge Union (workhouse) and former Mayor of Axbridge
Bath Postal Museum: Portraits
Portait of Thomas Moore Musgrave in pastels Copy of a portrait of John Palmer Copy of a portrait of Ralph Allen
British Film Institute: BFI Stills Portraits
A photographic collection of film and television personality portraits, including actors, directors, and technicians. The collection spans film and television making from their earliest days to the present. The...
British Film Institute: BFI Stills Collection
A collection of Internatiional significance of production stills, personality portraits and behind the scenes stills for World cinema and British television.
British Optical Association Museum: Portraits Collection
This heading is included due to the museum's involvement in the SSN Understanding British Portraiture mapping exercise. It does not denote a distinct collection. Portraits are to be found across the museum's...
British Red Cross Museum and Archives: Paintings
The British Red Cross Museum and Archives hold paintings by a number of artists, such as R.T. Landells, Ernest Procter, Septimus Edwin Scott, Henry Mee and Rosa Branson. In addition there are a number of portraits:...
Chippenham Museum & Heritage Centre: Chippenham Museum & heritage Centre Portraits
7 oil paintings and 6 prints showing portrits of local persons
Dorset County Museum: Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, Portrait Collection
The collection of oil paintings, prints and drawings and sculpture covers a wide range of periods and dates of sitters connected with Dorset. There are 120 oil portraits, including individual sitters and several...
English Heritage, National Monuments Record: English Heritage (National Monuments Record)
The National Monuments Record (NMR) is the public archive of English Heritage. Over 10 million photographs and other archive items are held relating to England's architecture and archaeology. The photographic...
Exeter Cartes de Visite Collection: Exeter Cartes de Visite Collection
A privately-owned collection of nineteenth-century carte de visite portrait photographs by Exeter, Devon photographers, the earliest dating from the 1860s. Although the photographer is named, in only few instances...
George Marshall Medical Museum: George Marshall Medical Museum Portrait Collection
George Marshall Medical Museum's collection of 9 portraits that once hung in the boardroom of the Castle Street Infirmary in Worcester. Portraits illustrate several key figures in the founding and running of the...
Hartlepool Art Gallery: Portraiture
Hartlepool has a small but locally important collection of portraits. These most relate to those who service in local politics, or were important in the economic development of the town such as shipbuilder Sir...
Henry Moore Institute: Leeds Museums & Galleries (Henry Moore Institute Archive)
The archive is a specialist repository for papers relating to sculpture in Britain and has material dating from the eighteenth century to the present day with a particular emphasis on the period post 1880. It...
History of Advertising Trust: The History of Advertising Trust Archive
1. Photographic collections include portraits of advertising, marketing and media industry leaders from the 19th century to the present day. Also cartoons, caracatures, prints and painted portraits. 2. The...
Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons: Portrait Collection
The College holds about 480 portrait paintings, drawings and busts; and approximately 2,600 portrait prints. The majority show figures associated with surgery, the medical profession or associated with the College...
Imperial War Museum: Imperial War Museum, Department of Art, portrait collection
The Imperial War Museum’s art collection encompasses c 3000 portraits relating to conflict in the 20th and 21st century. In addition to 423 oil paintings, the collection includes portraits in a wide range of...
INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS: ICE Works of Art, and portraits collections
Institution of Civil Engineers has a collection of oil portraits of the majority of its Presidents and this collection is added to as a new President is elected. It also has a small collection of portrait busts....
Institution of Mechanical Engineers: IMechE portraits collection
Collected portraits and busts of prominent engineers, generally former Presidents of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Jane Austen Centre: Jane Austen Centre
Single portrait by Melissa Dring of Jane Austen based on contemporary eye-witness accounts by family relatives of Jane Austen. Melissa Dring is a fellow of the Pastel Society and has worked extensively with...
John Innes Centre: Portrait Collection
portraits of eminent research scientists painted by Prof Enrico Coen: Prof Sue Wessler Prof Sean Carroll Prof Tim Richmond Prof Joe Ecker Prof Sir Jack Baldwin Prof Herbert Jaeckle Prof Carol Goss Prof Bruce...
John Innes Centre: JIC NAMED LECTURE SERIES
portraits of research scientists who have visited the John Innes Centre; the researchers presented a 'named' lecture and during their visit had their portrait painted by Professor Enrico Coen
Leamington Art Gallery And Museum: British Portraits
A large collection of British portraits, predominantly by local artists and of local sitters, exists at Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum. The collection dates from 1567, with an unattributed portrait of...
Leeds City Art Gallery: Portrait Sculpture
The Leeds sculpture collection includes around 140 portraits, including busts, medallion portraits and statues of Leeds' worthies, Roman emperors, friends and family of sculptors, self portraits and maquettes and...
London Fire Brigade Museum: London Fire Brigade Art
Paintings and artworks undertaken by Artists of the fire brigade in London, from the 18th century to the present day. We hold many images of Chief fire officers dating from the first chief officer in 1833 to the...
National Archives of Scotland: Broughton Place Church of Scotland, Edinburgh
Portraits of ministers, session clerks etc which originally hung in the session room at Broughton Place Church. Deposited in NAS by St Mary' Bellevue united with Broughtton McDonald in 1994. 1. The Rev James...
National Maritime Museum: Miniatures
This collection numbers almost 200 items, dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, mostly portraits of British men (and very occasionally women) with maritime associations. There are a large number of...
National Portrait Gallery: Photographic
The Photographic Collection consists of over 220,000 original images, 130,000 are original negatives ranging from 1840s to present. Significant photographs are 3 large format volumes of calotypes (salt prints) made...
National Portrait Gallery: Fine Art
There are 10,000 portraits in the Primary Collection, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world shows the most influential characters in British history portrayed by the finest artists of their generation,...
National Trust - Chambre Hardman Archive: Chambre Hardman Archive
THis collection encompasses the work of Edward Chambre Hardman, a prominent photographer working in Liverpool. The collection covers both Hardman's work as a professional protrait photogrpaher and also his...
Norwich Castle Museum And Art Gallery: Portraits
Portraits in all mediums, conversaton pieces, miniatures, busts and photographs mainly with a Norfolk connection from sixteenth to twentieth century. Artists include Peake, Hogarth, Walton, Slaughter, Opie, F....
Norwich Castle Museum And Art Gallery: Norwich School of Artists
Works by Norwich School artists in all mediums.
Norwich Castle Museum And Art Gallery: Norwich Civic Portrait Collection
collection of portraits of Mayors and local dignitaries from sixteenth to twentieth century, includes portraits by Gainsborough, Hoppner, Lawrence, Heins and Bardwell, and Beechey's portrait of Nelson
Norwich Castle Museum And Art Gallery: Buxton of Tibenham family portraits
Collection of forty portraits from sixteenth to nineteenth century of family members. Artists include Peake, Bardwell, Walton and Lely.
Oriental Club: Oriental Club Portraits
Collective Portraits of individuals associated with British India around the development of the Empire and the period of the Raj.
Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament): Fine Art
The fine art collection comprises murals, paintings, statues and busts, works on paper and some textiles relating to Parliament and its history. Collections assembled since the early 19th century and continues to...
Peace Museum: The Margaret Glover Collection of Portraits from The Peace Movement
A collection of over 50 portraits of people working within the peace movement.
Royal Academy of Arts: Royal Academy of Arts Collection
The Royal Academy fine art collection includes a substantial group of portraits and self-portraits, mostly of Royal Academicians, dating from the mid-18th century to the present day. As well as portraits in oils,...
Royal Academy of Music Museum: Royal Academy of Music Portraiture Collection
Painted portraits of ‘An Audition at the Royal Academy of Music’ (Sir Thomas Armstrong, Percy Waller, Marcus Thomson and Ernest Read); HRH Princess Alice Duchess of Gloucester, William Alwyn, the Hon. Cecilia...
Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery: Portraiture
Some of the foremost portraitists of the eighteenth century were Devonian – Francis Hayman, Thomas Hudson, Joshua Reynolds and Richard Cosway. Each of these painters is well represented after nearly a century of...
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists: Heritage collections
Archive of material relating to the foundation and operation of the College together with special collections including personal and professional papers of Fellows and Members. Fine art collection including...
Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow: Portrait Collection at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow
The majority of the portrait collection depicts influential surgical and medical figures connected to Glasgow and the College itself. Probably the most important portrait is the unsigned 17th Century painting of...
Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings and Archives Collection: Portrait Collection
The collection consists of a complete set of portraits of the RIBA's President's from 1834 to 1987 and a fine collection of painted, drawn and sculpted portraits of architects and architectural historians from the...
Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings and Archives Collection: Drawings Collection
The Drawings Collection, part of the RIBA Library Drawings and Archives Collections, is the largest and most important collection of British architectural drawings in the world and also contains important drawings...
Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings and Archives Collection: Archives Collection
The Archives Collection, part of the RIBA Library Drawings & Archives Collections, provides an outstanding body of primary source material for the study of British architecture and related subject areas as well as...
Russell-Cotes Art Gallery And Museum: Portraits
The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum is formed around the core of art and objects assembled by our founders and given to the Borough of Bournemouth in 1921. Around this are the collecting responses of subsequent...
Scarborough Art Gallery: Portrait Collection
There are approximately sixty portraits (in oils) in Scarborough Art Gallery's collection. Most of these are portraits of Scarborough Mayors and MP's, from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, which are of local...
Society Of Antiquaries of London: Fine Art Collection
The Society has been collecting paintings since the early 18th century to the present day, usually as gifts or bequests from Fellows. The earliest has been dated to c1365-1380, and the latest are portraits of 20th...
Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society: Portraits
About 3600 portraits of people associated with Somerset: the majority extracted from published sources, but including some original drawings and photographs.
Special Collections, Robinson Library, Newcastle University: Miscellaneous Newcastle University Paintings
The selection of portraiture in the Newcastle University collection include portraits, photographs and buildings. Sitters include: Baron Takaki FRCS; Charles Gibson; CJ Gibb MD, MRCS; D. White; Daniel Turner;...
St Albans Museum Service: Prints (Portraits)
Portraits are primarily of prominent local people such as Sir Francis Bacon. Many of them can be viewed via our on-line collections database at www.stalbansmuseums.org.uk
St Albans Museum Service: Photographic Collection (Portraits)
The photographic collection of St Albans Museum service includes a number of portraits of local residents taken by St Albans based photographer Cherry and Co. Many of these images are avaliable to view on our...
St Albans Museum Service: Oil Paintings (Portraits)
Oil paintings held by St Albans Museum Service have been catalogued by the Public Catalogue Foundation. Portraits are represented and include works by Henry Mitton Wilson, Sir Oswald Birley and Frank Salisbury....
St Edmundsbury Borough Council Heritage Service: St Edmundsbury Heritage Service Portrait Collection
The collection is based on the Cullum Collection of family portraits and has been been extended to include other portraits with a Suffolk connection. The collection covers the period 1570 - 2000 with particular...
St Edmundsbury Borough Council Heritage Service: Gershom-Parkington Collection of Time Measuring Instruments
The Gershom-Parkington Collection of Time Measuring Instruments contains examples drawn from all over the world, but has particular strengths in the context of the development of European time keeping technology...
The Barber Institute Of Fine Arts: British Portraiture
The Barber Institute holds a small collection of British Portaits, the majority of which comprise late 18th century portraits by artists such as Gainsborough, Reynolds and Romney. There are two portrait miniatures...
The Baring Archive Limited: The Baring Archive: The Archive
The Baring Archive contains the records of the Barings bank, which was founded in 1762 and acquired by ING in 1995. In terms of volume, books of account constitute a very large part of the Archive. An almost...
The Baring Archive Limited: The Baring Archive: Historical Portraits
The historical portraits collection compromises a group of eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century portraits of individuals associated with Barings bank. Many of the portraits were commissioned from leading...
The Bowes Museum: Fine Art (Portraiture)
The Bowes Museum's Fine Art collection contains nearly 1000 portraits including; sculptures, miniatures, oil paintings, watercolours, drawings, prints and metalwork. The collection includes examples of European...
The Garrick Club: Picture Collection
Displayed throughout the Club is its remarkable collection of art works representing the history of the British theatre. There are over 1000 paintings, drawings and sculptures, a fascinating selection of theatrical...
The Garrick Club: Library
When the Club was founded in 1831 Rule 1 of the Garrick Club Rules and Regulations called for the "formation of a theatrical Library, with works on costume". At a General Meeting on 15th October 1831 the barrister...
The Leathersellers' Company: Leathersellers\' Company portraits MLA ref 47784
There are 34 portraits held in this collection at Leathersellers' Hall, all oil paintings except one (of Holmes, last in the list). Most are portraits of Masters of the Company, plus some of other prominent members...
The Swedenborg Society:
The collection is of portraits of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), figures contemporary with Swedenborg and connected with his life, and of prominent Swedenborgians and members of the New Church from the late...
The Vintners' Company: Vintners\' Company portraits
Vintners’ Company Portraits: Over 30 portraits are at Vintners' Hall, mostly of Past Masters or other prominent members of the Company from the 17th century onwards. There are also a number of royal portraits. All...
Titsey Foundation: Titsey Place
Towneley Hall Art Gallery And Museum: Towneley Family Portraits Collection
The gallery at Towneley once contained an unbroken series of over 150 family portraits from 1600 to the end of the 19th century but the collection was dispersed when the family left in 1902. Subsequently 11 oil...
Towneley Hall Art Gallery And Museum: Fine Art Collection
There is a collection of 328 oil paintings, which is strongest in its holdings of 19th century British artists including Sir Edwin Landseer, John William Waterhouse, Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, and Sir Lawrence...
UCL Art Collections: Portrait Collection
UCL Art Collections holds portraits dating from the 16th to 20th centuries. These include old master drawings from the Holbein workshop, 17th and 18th-century mezzotint portraits by artists such as John Smith and...
UCL Art Collections: Slade School of Fine Art Collection
The collection is an unparalleled resource for the study of art education in Britain. Prizes were awarded to Slade students in categories including Figure, Portrait and Composition painting and drawing. The...
Unilever plc: Unilever portraits
Portraits of Unilever chairmen and "founding fathers" of subsidiary companies.
University of Bradford: University of Bradford portraits
The art collection of the University of Bradford includes a growing portrait gallery (in the J.B. Priestley Library) of paintings and photographs of University officers. Sitters include Chancellors (Harold Wilson,...
University of Bradford: Portraits of the Holden Family (in Papers of Sir Isaac Holden HOL bundle 92).
Sir Isaac Holden (1807-1897) was a very successful Bradford wool manufacturer. His Papers include the following portraits (in bundle 92) : 3 studio portraits of Sir Isaac Holden in later life, by A.Sager of...
University of Bradford: Portraits of Jacquetta Hawkes (HAW/18)
The Archive of Jacquetta Hawkes includes a painting of this author and archaeologist by Mary Potter (on display in the Special Collections Reading Room). Also several portrait photographs of Hawkes; artists...
University of Bradford: Portraits of J.B. Priestley (PRI/21)
The J.B. Priestley Archive includes many portrait photographs of Priestley from the 1920s to the end of his life and of Priestley's family and friends (e.g. Jacquetta Hawkes, Edward Davison, Hugh Walpole)....
University of Bradford: Portraits of Dmitrije Mitrinović (NAF/5)
The Dmitrije Mitrinovic and New Atlantis Foundation Archive includes a painting (oil on wood) of Serbian philosopher Mitrinović by Z. Nastasijević, Belgrade, 1929. The photographic section of the Archive,...
University of Bradford: Portraits of Anglican bishops in Peart-Binns Episcopal Biography Archive (PEB)
This Archive was created by John Peart-Binns, who specialises in writing biographies of Anglican bishops (19th century to present day). It is not yet fully catalogued, definitely contains some portrait photographs,...
University of Oxford: New College portrait collection
A collection of portraits of former Wardens and Fellows of College including works by Greenbury, Romney, Hill, Von Herkomer, Cecil Beeton, James Lloyd, and Richard Hamilton.
Valence House Museum: Fanshawe family portrait collection
The Fanshawe Collection comprises paintings, letters and official papers relating to 500 years of Fanshawe family history. The collection was given to Valence House Museum by Captain Aubrey Fanshawe, R.N, in 1963....
Warrington Museum And Art Gallery: Portrait busts/medallions by John \'Warrington\' Wood
15 portrait busts/medallions sculpted by John 'Warrington' Wood depicting various sitters: John Fitchett, William Beamont, Reverend William Queckett, Samuel Rigby, Thomas Glazebrook Rylands, Lord Winmarleigh (John...
Wellcome Library: British portraits
The portraits in the Wellcome Library do not form a single discrete collection: they are dispersed over several distinct collections, as follows (numbers include British and non-British unless otherwise indicated):...
West Sussex County Council Library Service: Walter Gardiner Photography Collection
Over 116,000 negatives of Worthing and West Sussex people, places and businesses from the 1880s to the year 2000. Includes high quality photographic portraits of individuals and groups, and is especially strong...
Weston Park Foundation: Fine Art Collection
Collection of Old Master and British paintings, reflecting the collecting interests of successive generations of the family of the Earls of Bradford.
Weston Park Foundation: Decorative Art Collection
Weston Park contains a broad demonstration of the decorative arts through its collections of furniture, ceramics and glass, tapestries, silver and other applied arts which were collected by successive generations...
Weston Park Foundation: Weston Park Portrait Collection
The Collection is the indigenous collection of portraits of the hereditary owners of Weston Park, including members of the Wilbraham, Newport and Bridgeman families, together with other relations and contemporary...
Wilberforce House: Slavery-related archives
Plantation records, abolition pamplhets, 1807 election ephemera, anti-slavery images, booklet etcera.
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