This collection includes some significant pieces of furniture, such as a wood and marble table probably commissioned by Queen Mary II for the Water Gallery at Hampton Court Palace, as well as paintings. The portraits feature a number of royal subjects: Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, two of Edward VI, one of him aged 5 years and the other after he became King, aged 13 years and there is a sculpture of Charles I.

Key figures from British history such as Oliver Cromwell and Horatio, Admiral Nelson are represented. From more recent history, one of the finest works by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), Portrait of Mrs Baldwin was bought in July 2004.

In 2006 a pair of historic paintings by the eighteenth century master Canaletto which were destined to leave Britain, were saved for public viewing by the Compton Verney Collection Settlement, with funds from the Peter Moores Charitable Trust. View of the Grand Walk, Vauxhall Gardens is shown here on the left. The pair form an important link between Compton Verney's Italian and British collections.
Compton Verney's collection of paintings from Naples represents a cross-section of masterpieces from the ‘Golden Age' of Neapolitan art. It includes religious scenes by Cavallino, Giordano and Solimena; still-life paintings by Porpora and Ruoppolo; and the work of Strozzi, Bonito and Volaire.

A number of paintings from this collection have been loaned to other galleries such as, the National Gallery, London, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and in Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, Castel Sant’Elmo, Certosa e Museo di San Martino, Museo Duca di Martina, Museo Pignatelli and the Palazzo Reale.

Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano east of Naples, erupted several times in the 1770s, including 1774, the year of the painting, shown on the left, by Pierre-Jacques Volaire, a Frenchman.
Several of the panel paintings and statues in this collection come from near Nuremberg in southern Germany, which from 1450 to 1550 was home to an important circle of artists and craftsmen, including the sculptor, Tilman Riemenschneider, one of the most important sculptors in Germany in the middle ages, Lucas Cranach the Elder, whose representations of the female nude are amongst the most coveted of his works and Martin Schongauer, painter and printmaker who was the finest German engraver before Albrecht Dürer.

The large limewood relief sculpture, The Holy Kinship, shown here on the right, would originally have formed part of a large altarpiece. On the basis of its style the sculpture has been attributed to the circle of the Master I.P., who was one of the most versatile and influential carvers in Southern Germany in the 1520s.

The names of the artists of many of the works shown are not known but referred to as, for example, Workshop of The Master of Frankfurt, Attributed to the Circle of the Master I.P, Tilman Riemenschneider School, Circle of Christian Jorhan the Elder and Master of the Schwabach Altarpiece.
This impressive collection of bronzes, one of the three best in Europe, were produced over a period of 1500 years from the early Shang Dynasty (about 1700 to 1050 BC) to the Han Dynasty (206 BC to AD 220). The vessels were used for serving food and drink during religious rituals and ancestor worship, and were buried in the tombs of the deceased. The collection also includes pottery pieces, such as a set of twelve painted pottery equestrian figures made for placing in a tomb to guard the deceased.

On the right is a ritual wine vessel and cover from the Shang dynasty, about 1200-1050 BC, considered by most to be the first true dynasty of China which invented writing.

On the left is an extremely rare and important archaic bronze bought at Sotheby’s New York in 2007 for £4.14 million. The ritual wine vessel and cover from the Late Shang Dynasty was found at Anyang, the Dynasty’s capital, shortly before 1944. It has never been exhibited outside the USA.
This collection, a mixture of paintings and objects such as trade-signs, is the largest collection of British folk art in the UK. These works were made by relatively unskilled crafts people and provide a colourful and witty snapshot of life in Britain during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The potter’s workshop model, shown on the left, is a moving model.
31 July 2010
The Marx-Lambert Collection, a bequest from the graphic artist and textile designer Enid Marx, includes her own designs and pieces of folk art that she and her friend, Margaret Lambert collected, which helped to inspire her designs.

Shown on the right is a canal barge stool in the form of a bench, painted in a free style showing gipsy influence.
The Independent

‘Sir Peter is a genuine populist. He really wants ordinary people to love art... he built up a collection of British portraits. He reckoned people could relate to them. The folk art, "That's great fun, art by the people for the people. I couldn't believe how fantastic German art was." The southern Italian art springs out of a relationship with Naples that goes back to 1949. He saw "five or six absolutely fantastic Chinese bronzes and you want to know more about them." None of it has been on public display before. It is a mixture of the inspirational and the comforting.'