William Wallace Currie (1784–1840), Mayor of Liverpool

Phillips's portrait of William Wallace Currie, Mayor of Liverpool from 1837 depicts the civic leader of one of Britain's most commercially dynamic cities at the height of its Atlantic trading wealth. Liverpool in 1837 was the world's second port after London, its merchants enriched by the cotton and slave trades that had funded the city's remarkable architectural and cultural expansion. Currie's mayoral portrait served the civic documentation function that made Phillips's practice central to the institutional self-representation of British municipal and professional organizations throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. The Liverpool holding at a local institution testifies to the regional dispersal of his portrait work across Britain's major provincial cities.

The mayoral portrait follows conventions of civic portraiture, with Currie presented in the formal attire appropriate to his office. Phillips's competent handling serves the documentary purpose of recording Liverpool's civic leadership. The composition is straightforward, with the sitter's authority conveyed through bearing and costume.