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.
Vanessa (Millais painting) may have married secretly. Vanessa died soon afterwards. Millais also painted a companion piece depicting Stella. The painting is part of the 18th century revival in British art at this time, when a renewed interest in the brushwork of Reynolds and Gainsborough was emerging. Vanessa (Millais painting) Vanessa (1868) is a painting by John Everett Millais in Sudley House, Liverpool. It is a fancy portrait depicting Jonathan Swift's close friend and correspondent Esther Vanhomrigh (1688-1723), who was known by that nickname, which Swift himself invented for her. "Vanessa" represents a major departure in Millais's art because he abandons fully for