The relationship between John Linnell and Samuel Palmer has not received the attention it deserves from art historians.  Even the main authorities on Palmer give a misleading impression in this respect: A. H. Palmer takes pains to minimise the artistic influence of Linnell on Palmer, while Geoffrey Grigson, writing some fifty years later, stresses the detrimental effects on Palmer of his friendship with Linnell during the Shoreham period.

John Gibbons (1777-1851) was one of the new breed of upper middle-class patrons in nineteenth-century England.  A wealthy although sickly ironmaster from Birmingham, he devoted his limited energies to acquiring an extensive collection of contemporary British art.

John Brett was twenty-seven when The Stonebreaker was exhibited in 1858.  He had trained at the Royal Academy Schools, and although he was not a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he had been an admirer of their work for several years.

The buildings of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, formerly the Naval Hospital and originally the site of a royal palace, are one of the supreme achievements of English architecture.  Although well known, it is necessary to outline some of their earlier history, before discussing two newly discovered drawings by John Webb for a grotto in the park behind.