The article refers to the image of British politicians and public figures of the Victorian era in painting. Genre paintings represent scenes from everyday life of members of parliament, chamber portraits, domestic scenes of private life of public figures, with plenty of details which are very important to historians of art. In addition, there was an old tradition of painting large-scale group portraits devoted to some events of the history of parliament, assembly companies, etc., just in the traditions of classical academic composition. Along with engravings and illustrations of periodicals, the visual sources help scholars to look at the same historical events from different perspectives, through the eyes of genre painters or of artists who worked in the tradition of large-scale paintings.