William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme a painting by Edmund Leighton. Lever's rival in the soap industry, A & F Pears, had taken the lead in using art for marketing by buying paintings such as "Bubbles" by John Everett Millais to promote its products. Lever's response was to acquire similarly illustrative works, and he later bought 'The New Frock' by William Powell Frith to promote the Sunlight soap brand. In 1922 he founded the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight in Cheshire which he dedicated to his late wife Elizabeth. William Lever was born on 19 September 1851 at 16 Wood Street, Bolton, Lancashire, England.
Mariana (Millais) Mariana (Millais) Mariana is an 1851 oil-on-wood painting by John Everett Millais. The image is based on the solitary Mariana from William Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure", written between 1601 and 1606. In the play, Mariana was to be married, but was rejected when her dowry was lost in a shipwreck. Her story was retold in "Mariana", a poem published in 1830 by Tennyson, which provided additional inspiration for Millais' painting. The painting is regarded as an example of Millais' "precision, attention to detail, and stellar ability as a colorist". Millais was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group