Mr William Petrie

Mr Thomas Balston bequeathed to the Art Fund a large collection of pictures, drawings, and prints, with the request that his extensive collection of works by, after, and connected with John Martin (on whom he had written a monograph) should be offered to the Victoria and Albert Museum, that the Ashmolean Museum should be allowed to take what it wanted of the rest, and that the residue should, so far as possible, be distributed among other public institutions in Great Britain.