John Julius Angerstein

John Julius Angerstein (1735 – 22 January 1823) was a London businessman and Lloyd's underwriter, a patron of the fine arts and a collector. It was the prospect that his collection of paintings was about to be sold by his estate in 1824 that suddenly galvanised the King, George IV, and the prime minister, Lord Liverpool, into purchasing his collection for the nation and led to the founding of the British National Gallery in Angerstein's house at 100 Pall Mall. Parentage John Julius Angerstein was born in St Petersburg, Russia, in 1735. It has wrongly been suggested that he was a natural son of Empress Catherine II or of Elizabeth, Empress of Russia. Family tradition holds that his true parents were Empress Anna of Russia and the London businessman Andrew Poulett Thompson; his first position after arriving in London at the age of fifteen was in Thompson's counting-house. Family In 1771 Angerstein married Anna Crockett (widow of Charles Crockett and daughter of Henry Muilman [1700–1772], a South Sea Company director, banker, Danish consul in London and Russia Company consul, and Anne, née Darnall) at St Peter-le-Poer, Old Broad Street. They had two children – Juliana, who married General Nikolai Sablukov of the Russian service, and John Angerstein (1773–1858). Anna died in 1783, and in 1785 John Julius Angerstein married Eliza Lucas (daughter of the Rev. Joseph Payne and widow of Thomas Lucas, a director of the South Sea Company, president of Guy's Hospital and West Indies merchant). A portrait of Angerstein and his second wife, Eliza, by Thomas Lawrence was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1792 (now held by The Louvre museum, Paris).