John Julius Angerstein

John Julius Angerstein (1732 – 22 January 1823) a London businessman and Lloyd's under-writer, was a patron of the fine arts and a collector. It was the prospect that his collection of paintings was about to be sold by his estate in 1824 that galvanised the founding of the British National Gallery.

John Julius Angerstein was born in 1732 in St Petersburg, Russia. It has wrongly been suggested that he was a natural son of empress Catherine II or of Elizabeth, Empress of Russia. Family tradition holds that his true parents were empress Anna of Russia and the London businessman, Andrew Poulett Thompson; his first position after arriving in London c. 1749 at the age of fifteen was in Thompson's counting-house.

In 1771 Angerstein married Anna Crockett (widow of Charles Crockett and daughter of Henry Muilman (1700–1772) a South Sea Company director, banker, Danish consul in London and Russia Company consul, and Anne née Darnall) at St Peter-le-Poer, Old Broad Street. They had two children - Juliana, who married General of the Russian service, and John Angerstein (MP) (1773–1858). (A memorial in the church of St Nicholas at Bratton St Maur, near Wincanton, Somerset, describes a John Julius Angerstein who was born in 1843 and died in 1924 as the proprietor of nearby Holbrook House and says he worshipped in the church of St Nicholas, but also records his having died in Norfolk; this is presumably a descendant of the MP.)

Anna died in 1783, and in 1785 John Julius Angerstein married Eliza Lucas (daughter of the Rev. Joseph Payne and widow of Thomas Lucas, a director of the South Sea Company, president of Guy's Hospital and West Indies merchant). A portrait of Angerstein and his second wife, Eliza, by Thomas Lawrence was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1792 (now held by The Louvre museum, Paris).

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