Art of the United Kingdom a preserved shark. The Tate gallery and eventually the Royal Academy also gave them exposure. The influence of Saatchi's generous and wide-ranging patronage was to become a matter of some controversy, as was that of Jay Jopling, the most influential London gallerist. The "Sensation" exhibition of works from the Saatchi Collection was controversial in both the UK and the US, though in different ways. At the Royal Academy press-generated controversy centred on "Myra", a very large image of the murderer Myra Hindley by Marcus Harvey, but when the show travelled to New York City, opening at the Brooklyn Museum in
The Battle of the Roses of the person who commissioned the portrait is unknown but it was completed by Wollen in 1895 and was exhibited at the 1896 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (catalogue number 673) after which it was sold. It was one of the pieces selected to appear in Cassell's "Royal Academy Pictures" 1896 edition. It is known to have been on display in West Yorkshire soon after but the subsequent whereabouts of the portrait are unknown until 1957 when members of the Yorkshire Rugby Football Union found the portrait in a second-hand shop in Newcastle. They bought the picture for £25 and it