The Livery Hall

In 1901 the Company commissioned Herbert Draper, a neo-classical painter who had recently been awarded a gold medal by the Royal Academy, to create paintings for the Livery Hall ceiling panels. These were executed between 1903 and 1910. The Company was at first diffident about the artist’s choice of subject – scenes from The Tempest and A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream seemed inappropriate – but the artist persisted and went on to fill the remaining space with representations of History, Science, Ethics and Literature.