William Ewart Gladstone

Franz von Lenbach's 'William Ewart Gladstone' (1886) is one of the most significant of his non-German portrait subjects — the British Liberal prime minister (four times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) depicted by the most celebrated portraitist in Europe. Gladstone was among the dominant political figures of the Victorian era, and Lenbach's access to him during a visit to Britain or Gladstone's visits to the Continent allowed the German painter to apply his psychological portraiture to the Grand Old Man of British Liberal politics.

Lenbach renders Gladstone with his characteristic old-master-inspired approach — the British statesman's powerful features, his penetrating intelligence, and the authority of his bearing conveyed through the tonal depth and psychological directness of Lenbach's best portrait work. His Rembrandt-influenced technique gives the portrait the warmth and depth that academic smoothness lacks. The comparison between his Gladstone and his Bismarck — the two great statesmen of the era — reveals his consistency of psychological approach across different national political cultures.