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.
The Return of the Dove to the Ark The Return of the Dove to the Ark The Return of the Dove to the Ark is a painting by Sir John Everett Millais, completed in 1851. It is in the Thomas Combe collection at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The painting portrays a scene from the Bible. Two of Noah's daughters-in-law nurture the dove that has returned to the Ark bearing an olive branch. This is the second of Millais's paintings with biblical themes, following "The Eve of the Deluge". Millais had some intention of producing a "pendant" painting titled "The Dove's First Flight", but never did so. Millais's original