The Lady Lever Art Gallery has won £1.2 million in funding to display over 1,500 art works, including a Napoleon death mask and two Wedgwood Rooms.

The Wirral gallery will benefit from an Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant and will use the money to restore 500 square metres of the gallery. The new space will showcase treasures from the extensive collection of William Hesketh Lever, including two interlinked rooms displaying several ornamental Wedgwood jasperware items. The highlights of the rooms will be three out of only four complete jasperware fireplaces in the world.

Other rooms include an Eighteenth Century Room, Chinese Rooms featuring 17th-18th century porcelain, a Napoleon Room and a Chinoiserie Room. A sculpture gallery and vestibule will also be funded from the grant, which will connect the gallery to the architecture of Port Sunlight village.

The restoration work is being overseen by architects Purcell and will see work completed in the 1960s removed and historic doorways reinstated.

Sandra Penketh, director of Art Galleries National Museums Liverpool, says: “We are thrilled to be able to take our exciting plans for the future of the Lady Lever Art Gallery forward with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

“2014 marks the centenary of the laying of the foundation stone, so it is especially fitting that 100 years since it began we can continue Lever’s vision for the gallery to inspire a love and understanding of art.”

The funding will also go towards new educational programmes and resources for local schools and community groups.

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