This is a copy by Malcolm Stewart of the portrait of Gladstone by Sir John Everett Millais, painted in 1879, which is now in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 3637). Gladstone was a great financier and statesman and entered Parliament in 1832. In 1867 he became leader of the Liberal party. He was Prime Minister four times and finally resigned in 1894. Gladstone had been friends with King Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales and his eldest son had been one of the boys chosen as a companion to the Prince when he was at Eton. He was touched by the 'delicacy and kindness' the Prince and Princess of Wales showed him (unlike Queen Victoria who referred to him as 'that half-mad firebrand'. The Prince acted as one of the pall-bearers at Gladstone's funeral'.