Liverpool gallery brings home pre-Raphaelite paintings

LONDON, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Three world-famous pre-Raphaelite paintings have returned to their home at the nationally acclaimed Lady Lever Art Gallery near Liverpool in the United Kingdom (UK) after being loaned to the National Portrait Gallery in London and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.

A team of experts, watched by gallery staff, had to wear masks and maintain social distance on Wednesday during the operation to restore the works to their places in the gallery, one of the collections of National Museums Liverpool (NML).

Two of the returned oil-on-canvas works are by famous artist Edward Burne-Jones, who painted them in the 19th century. They are the Tree of Forgiveness, painted in 1882, and The Beguiling of Merlin, painted in 1874-1877.

The third work, A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford, was painted in 1857 by another Victorian-era artist, John Everett Millais.

Currently the gallery is closed because of lockdown restrictions.

A spokeswoman for the NML said that "Visitors to the Lady Lever Art Gallery will once more be able to see these world-leading artworks by Edward Burne-Jones and John Everett Millais when the gallery is next permitted to reopen its doors to the public."

The Lady Lever Gallery, located in the garden village of Port Sunlight, houses one of the UK's greatest collections of fine and decorative art. The gallery also houses one of the finest collections of Chinese porcelain in Europe.