The first major addition to the Harris’ art collection was a bequest from Preston lawyer Richard Newsham in 1883. This collection of over one hundred oil paintings and watercolours by prominent Victorian artists, is still considered the core of the collection today.

A favourite painting in the Newsham Collection is In the Bey’s Garden, painted in 1865 by John Frederick Lewis. The woman in the painting is meant to be the wife of a Bey, or Turkish provincial governor but is actually the artist’s wife, Marian.

Lewis travelled widely and lived in Cairo for 10 years. Back in Britain, he continued to paint Orientalist works for the rest of his career.