Norfolk's best paintings
Unknown Artist: Mr Symonds 1590-1600

Mr Symonds, a late Elizabethan Norfolk gent, goes a-hawking in a far from level landscape, suggesting a world of topical and topographical difference between the reigns of the two Elizabeths.
John Crome (1768-1821): Norwich River: Afternoon, 1812-1819

Forget the horrors of depression, oppression and Napoleonic wars. The founding master of the Norwich School knows the timeless joy of messing around in boats.
John Craske (1881-1943): The Fishing Smack Gannet

Former Sheringham fisherman John Craske painted and embroidered his memories of marine adventures through decades of ill-health – fame now finally awaiting him in pending books and exhibitions.
Unknown Artist: Scragg's Cow, 1831

I love these naïve pictures commissioned by our farming forebears with their big brags and fat lies. Could this buxom beast ever have lived, let alone walked?
Henry Baines (1823-1894): Quayside with St Margaret's, 1855-1865

While brother Thomas painted African adventures, Henry Baines found wild romance on his native quayside in a town long sending fishers, traders and explorers all over the world.
William Beechey (1753-1839): Horatio, Viscount Nelson (1758-1805)

Here is the Norfolk-born hero in all his glory – a monumental 1801 tribute after our seasick son's victory at the Battle of the Nile and as depicted by the artist of his choice.
Despenser Retable

Celebrating the crushing of the 1381 Peasants' Revolt and miraculously hidden from Puritan vandals, this altarpiece is Norfolk's greatest surviving painted treasure from troubling times.
Campbell Mellon (1876-1955): The Holiday Season

Norfolk's L.S. Lowry savoured the heyday of seaside summer holidays from a Gorleston eyrie, painting the August crowds from Hopton to Great Yarmouth.
Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920): Head of a Woman (Anna Zborowska), 1918-1919

Modigliani is a tragic icon of 20th century modernism, and this haunting tribute to his dealer's wife now fits with fabulous treasures across cultures and centuries given to us by Robert and Lisa Sainsbury.