George Case (1747–1836), Mayor of Liverpool

Phillips's portrait of George Case, Mayor of Liverpool from 1830, held at the Walker Art Gallery, documents the civic leadership of one of Britain's most commercially dynamic cities in the era of its greatest pre-Victorian growth. Liverpool's mayoralty was a position of enormous commercial and civic significance—the city's trade in cotton, sugar, and the associated financial services made its mayor responsible for one of Europe's most important mercantile communities. The Walker Art Gallery holding connects this portrait to Liverpool's great civic art collection, one of the largest and most important municipal art collections in Britain, built partly from the proceeds of the commercial wealth that Case's mayoral portrait represents.

The mayoral portrait follows conventions of civic portraiture appropriate to Liverpool's increasingly confident self-image. Phillips's handling is professional, with the sitter's civic authority conveyed through pose, costume, and expression. The Walker Art Gallery provides the natural institutional setting.