Andrew Lloyd Webber visits the Delaware Art Museum’s Pre-Raphaelite collection

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The day before the launch of the North American tour of a newly revived production of “Phantom of the Opera” at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber popped up to Wilmington to indulge in his other passion: Victorian-era art.

On Monday evening, Webber appeared at the Delaware Art Museum to join curator Sophie Lynford for an onstage interview about his renown Pre-Raphaelite art collection.

Webber has been attracted to the Pre-Raphaelite artists since he was a teenager in the early 1960s, when his interest in moody, lush Victorian art from a century earlier was an act of rebellion.

As Webber recalled in the introduction to the exhibition catalogue of his collection in 2003 at the Royal Academy of Arts, as a teenager, he asked his grandmother for 50 pounds to buy “Flaming June” by the then-nearly forgotten artist Frederic Leighton.

She flatly refused: “I will not have Victorian junk in my flat.”

What is Pre-Raphaelite art?

The Pre-Raphaelites began as an act of rebellion in 1848, proclaiming art of the Renaissance and after as “sloshy,” preferring the crisp lines and vibrant color of earlier, medieval paintings.

But by the early 20th century, and particularly the end of World War I, the drama and emotional exuberance of the Pre-Raphaelites found no traction in the European zeitgeist.

“After the carnage, so many people in Europe losing the cream of the male generation, basically killed, people thought this idealized world which the Victorians inhabited: ‘What was it about?’” Webber said during an interview before his appearance at the museum.

“I mean, it was worthless,” he said.

There are tales of Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces being thrown away in demolition dumpsters, as well as dealers buying the paintings for the value of their frames.

Then came Webber, who had not yet come into his successes in musical theater with shows like “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Evita” and “Cats.” In the 1960s, he was a struggling composer with little money, but possessed an eye for artwork that nobody else wanted.

“Like all kids, you’re a bit of a rebel,” he said. “So, with the art establishment saying that Victorian art was rubbish, there was a group of us who thought, ‘No, there was some wonderful architecture. There are some wonderful artists.’”

In the 1960s, the tide was beginning to turn in England for all things Victorian. In 1961, the ornately Victorian 1837 Euston train station in London was demolished and replaced with a modern building that is widely hated.

Writing in The Times in 2007, Richard Morrison described Euston’s design as giving “the impression of having been scribbled on the back of a soiled paper bag by a thuggish android with a grudge against humanity and a vampiric loathing of sunlight.”

The controversy spurred a renewed interest in Victorian preservation and art. In the 1960s, Webber was joined by another future music icon, Jimmy Page, in a passion for Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

“It would be fair to say that I was pretty intoxicated with the whole movement,” the Led Zeppelin guitarist told Tate in 2019.

Webber’s collection

Webber now has what is considered the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art in private hands. He is familiar with the collection at the Delaware Art Museum, which is heavy with Pre-Raphaelite works thanks to a transformative 1935 gift by Samuel and Mary Bancroft. The wealthy 19th-century industrialist couple were buying up Pre-Raphaelite paintings, particularly works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, when they were new.

“I have a couple of good Rossettis and a few minor ones, but not to the extent of what’s here in Wilmington,” Webber said. “Of course, I was only able to collect the things that were available. Right now, there are probably only half a dozen paintings left in private hands. Most of them are in museums.”

As with most conversations in America these days, Monday night’s interview at the Delaware Art Museum inevitably turned to Taylor Swift. Her new album “The Life of a Showgirl” features the song “The Fate of Ophelia.” Its cover art shows Swift partially submerged in water with only her face above the surface, which may be a nod to a famous Pre-Raphaelite work depicting Ophelia by John Millais.

Like the Pre-Raphaelites, Swift seems to be somewhat obsessed with Shakespeare’s tragic character.

“Ophelia was a fairly minor figure in ‘Hamlet,’ but she resonated with the Victorians a lot because she was a sad, mad woman,” Webber said. “They really related to her story and, indeed, rather embellished it. Became the cult of Ophelia.”

In a recent Instagram post, Webber suggested he may have played a role in Swift’s interest in Ophelia. Swift had visited the composer’s home and had lunch in a room hung with pieces of his art collection. Because Webber is an avid collector of Pre-Raphaelite art, he is inevitably surrounded by images of Ophelia.

“She was a subject that so many of the Victorian 19th-century artists painted. I must have got half a dozen versions,” he said. “She probably was the most painted legend in Victorian art.”