National Gallery London

<html> <head> <title>National Gallery London</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="description" content="National Gallery London: History, Highlights of Permanent Collection, Paintings, Exhibitions"> <meta name="keywords" content="National Gallery London, Fine Arts Museums England, British Galleries"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td> National Gallery London History, Permanent Collection, Top Paintings, Exhibitions. <a href="../site/search.htm" rel="nofollow"><img src="../images/arts.gif" width="147" height="29" border="0"></a> </td> </tr> </table> <hr width="750" size="1"> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"><img src="../images-paint/reubens-samson.jpeg" width="200" height="187"> <a href="../famous-paintings/samson-and-delilah.htm">Samson and Delilah</a> (1609-1610) By the Baroque painter Rubens. One of many masterpieces in the National Gallery, London.</td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <h1>National Gallery London</h1> Contents <a href="#history">History</a> <a href="#collection">Permanent Collection</a> <a href="#paintings">Painting Masterpieces</a> <a href="../art-museums-europe.htm">Art Museums in Europe</a> The National Gallery in London, one of the world's <a href="../art-museums.htm">best art museums</a>, is based in Trafalgar Square and contains over 2,300 Western European paintings in it's permanent collection. These paintings belong to the public and entrance to the gallery is free, although visitors have to pay to view certain temporary art shows. </td> </tr> </table> <hr width="750" size="1"> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> LEARN ART APPRECIATION Before visiting the National Gallery in London, please see <a href="../art-evaluation.htm">Art Evaluation: How to Appreciate Art</a>. IMPORTANT PAINTERS: ENGLAND For some of the most important artists of the 18th/19th centuries see: <a href="../history-of-art/best-english-painters.htm">Best English Painters</a>. MODERN BRITISH PAINTING For UK painters (1960-2000), see <a href="../history-of-art/british-painting-contemporary.htm">Contemporary British Painting</a> IRELAND <a href="../irish-art-galleries.htm">Irish Art Galleries</a> </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> BEST ART MUSEUMS IN BRITAIN <a href="british-museum.htm">British Museum</a> <a href="national-portrait-gallery.htm">National Portrait Gallery</a> <a href="tate-gallery.htm">Tate Gallery</a> <a href="courtauld-gallery.htm">Courtauld Gallery</a> <a href="british-royal-art-collection.htm">British Royal Art Collection</a> <a href="saatchi-gallery.htm">Saatchi Gallery</a> <a href="victoria-and-albert-museum.htm">Victoria & Albert Museum</a> <a href="national-gallery-of-scotland.htm">National Gallery of Scotland</a> FRANCE/BELGIUM <a href="louvre.htm">Louvre Museum</a> <a href="musee-orsay.htm">Musee d'Orsay</a> <a href="strasbourg-museum-of-fine-arts.htm">Strasbourg Museum of Fine Arts</a> <a href="royal-museum-antwerp.htm">Antwerp Museum of Fine Arts</a> GERMANY - AUSTRIA - SWISS <a href="gemaldegalerie-alte-meister-dresden.htm">Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister Dresden</a> <a href="gemaldegalerie-smpk-berlin.htm">Gemaldegalerie SMPK, Berlin</a> <a href="pinakothek.htm">Pinakothek Museum Munich</a> <a href="kunsthistorisches-museum-vienna.htm">Kunsthistorisches Museum</a> <a href="kunstmuseum-basel.htm">Kunstmuseum Basel</a> </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <a name="history"></a>History of the National Gallery Unlike other famous art museums like the Paris Louvre or the Prado in Madrid, the National Gallery did not begin by nationalising a royal collection. Instead, it came about through the House of Commons (the UK Parliament) who in 1824 agreed to pay £57,000 for the painting collection owned a banker called John Julius Angerstein. A total of 38 paintings were purchased and housed temporarily in Angerstein's house in Pall mall until a suitable gallery could be constructed. In 1823 the landscape painter and collector of art, Sir George Beaumont promised his collection of paintings to the state on the condition that suitable accommodation was provided for their display. Initially they also went on view in Pall Mall, until the whole collection was moved to Trafalgar Square in 1838. </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> ITALY <a href="uffizi-gallery.htm">Uffizi Gallery Florence</a> <a href="pitti-palace-florence.htm">Pitti Palace, Florence</a> <a href="capodimonte-museum-naples.htm">Capodimonte Museum, Naples</a> <a href="vatican.htm">Vatican Museums</a> <a href="raphael-rooms-vatican.htm">Raphael Rooms (Vatican)</a> <a href="doria-pamphilj-gallery.htm">Doria Pamphilj Gallery</a> <a href="guggenheim-venice.htm"> Guggenheim Venice</a> NETHERLANDS <a href="mauritshuis.htm">Mauritshuis Art Museum</a> <a href="rijksmuseum-amsterdam.htm">Rijksmuseum Amsterdam</a> RUSSIA <a href="hermitage.htm">Hermitage St Petersburg</a> <a href="tretyakov-gallery-moscow.htm">Tretyakov Gallery Moscow</a> <a href="pushkin-museum-of-fine-arts.htm">Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts</a> SPAIN <a href="prado-madrid.htm">Prado Museum Madrid</a> <a href="reina-sofia-madrid.htm">Reina Sofia, Madrid</a> </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> The current gallery has been expanded significantly since it's foundation, in fact, only the facade onto Trafalgar Square remains as it did in 1838. Several additions have been made to the building including the Sainsbury wing, which was built in 1991 to house the collection of Renaissance paintings. National Art Collections Fund At the turn of of the century the agricultural crisis forced many aristocratic families to sell their paintings. Many of these paintings were ending up in the United States, which prompted the foundation of the National Art Collections Fund. The first purchase of the fund, on behalf of the National Gallery, was Velazquez's Rokeby Venus in 1906. </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> WORLD'S BEST ART For a list of the finest works of painting and sculpture, by the world's most famous artists, see: <a href="../greatest-paintings-ever.htm">Greatest Paintings Ever</a> Oils, watercolours, mixed media from 1300-present. <a href="../greatest-sculptures-ever.htm">Greatest Sculptures Ever</a> Works in stone, bronze, wood from 33,000 BCE-present. TEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS For details of any important art shows being staged at the National Gallery London, see: <a href="../irish-art-news.htm">Art News Headlines</a>. ART GALLERIES IN USA Finest <a href="../art-museums-america.htm">Art Museums in America</a>. </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> WORLDS TOP ARTISTS For top creative practitioners, see: <a href="../best-artists-of-all-time.htm">Best Artists of All Time</a>. For the greatest view painters, see: <a href="../best-landscape-artists.htm">Best Landcape Artists</a>. For the greatest still life art, see: <a href="../best-still-life-painters.htm">Best Still Life Painters</a>. For the greatest portraitists see: <a href="../best-portrait-artists.htm">Best Portrait Artists</a>. For the greatest genre-painting, see: <a href="../best-genre-painters.htm">Best Genre Painters</a>. For the top allegorical painting, see: <a href="../best-history-painters.htm">Best History Painters</a>. JEWISH ART For an outstanding collection of Judaica, crafts and artifacts, see: <a href="jewish-art.htm">Jewish Art Museum</a>. </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> Other wealthy donators helped to grow the galleries collection including the industrialist Dr Ludwig Mond who gave 42 Italian renaissance paintings and Sir Hugh Lane (who died on the Lusitania in 1915) who left 39 paintings in his will. There was some controversary over the latter donation as he made an unwitnessed amendment to his will before dying, that the works should go to Ireland. It wasn't until 1959 that this dispute was settled and the Hugh Lane collection is now on permanent loan to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. In recent years there have been two major fund-raising campaigns. In 2004, £35m was raised to buy Raphaels Madonna of the Pinks and, in 2008, £50m was raised to buy Titian's Diana and Actaeon. The National Gallery is now largely priced out of the market for major works by Old Masters and can only make acquisitions with the help of public appeals. <a name="collection"></a>Permanent Collection The collection of the National Gallery London can be divided into the following styles and periods of art. Dutch School The Dutch school features mainly <a href="../genres/genre-painting-dutch-realist-school.htm">Dutch Realist genre painting</a> of the 17th century, including some of the <a href="../genres/genre-paintings-greatest.htm">greatest genre paintings</a> by Pieter de Hooch (1629-84), Rembrandt (1620-91), Aelbert Cuyp (1620-91), Aernout van der Neer (1603-77), Jan Steen (162679) and Johannes Vermeer (1632-75). English School The English School is most recognised by romantic painter <a href="../famous-artists/john-constable.htm">John Constable</a> (1776-1837) - his painting The Hay Wain (1821) is a national treasure. The Gallery has 11 paintings by portrait and landscape painter <a href="../famous-artists/thomas-gainsborough.htm">Thomas Gainsborough</a> (1727-88) including his famous Mr and Mrs Andrews (c.1750). There are 8 paintings by artist, printmaker and cartoonist <a href="../famous-artists/william-hogarth.htm">William Hogarth</a> (1697-1764) including his Marriage a la Mode: The Marriage Settlement (c.1743). There are also a number of fine paintings from other English artists such as John Hoppner, Thomas Lawrence, <a href="../famous-artists/joshua-reynolds.htm">Joshua Reynolds</a>, George Stubbs, Joseph Wright of Derby and <a href="../famous-artists/richard-wilson.htm">Richard Wilson</a>., as well as the decorative artists/sculptors <a href="../famous-artists/alfred-stevens.htm">Alfred Stevens</a> and <a href="../famous-artists/george-frederick-watts.htm">George Frederick Watts</a>. For more about figure work, see: <a href="../history-of-art/english-figurative-painting.htm">English Figurative Painting</a>. For details of scenic art, see: <a href="../history-of-art/english-landscape-painting.htm">English Landscape Painting</a>. <blockquote> See also our article: <a href="../how-to-appreciate-paintings.htm">How To Appreciate Paintings</a>. </blockquote> Flemish School The gallery owns 3 paintings by the Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) including The Interior of a Gothic Church looking East (1604). The Flemish school is also represented by paintings from Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Petrus Christus, Jan van Eyck, Jan Mabuse, Quentin Matsys, Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, David Teniers the Younger and Anthony van Dyck. French School Different movements in the French school are well represented in the gallery collection. There are 19 paintings by Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-26), including examples of his monumental Waterlily series; several by Manet (1832-83), Camille Pissarro (1830 1903), Paul Cezanne (18391906), Pierre Auguste Renoir (18411919), Edgar Degas (18341917) and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (17961875). Also on view are still life master Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin (1699-1779), neoclassicist Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), Romantic painters and lithographers Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) and Eugene Delacroix (17981863), classical artist Nicolas Poussin (1594-1655) and Rococo painters Francois Boucher (1703-70) and Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). German School The German school is represented by some of the <a href="../genres/portrait-paintings.htm">greatest portrait paintings</a> by Hans Holbein the Younger (14971543), as well as works by German Renaissance painter, printmaker and theorist Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), engraver and portraitist Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) and neoclassical painter Johann Zoffany (17331810). Italian School Renaissance <a href="../definitions/fine-art.htm">fine art</a> is amply represented at the gallery with paintings from the Proto-Renaissance by Giotto di Bondone and Duccio di Buoninsegna; from the Early Renaissance by Fra Angelico, Sandro Botticelli, Piero della Francesca, Masaccio, Andrea Mantegna, and Paolo Uccello; from the High Renaissance by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Giovanni Bellini and Titian, the leading painter of the 16th-century Venetian school; from the Mannerist period by <a href="../old-masters/parmigianino.htm">Parmigianino</a>, Caravaggio and Tintoretto. There are also Rococo works by the great fresco painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Spanish School The Spanish school is represented by artists Francisco Goya (17461828), Baroque painters Bartolome-Esteban Murillo (1617-1682) and Diego Velazquez 15991660), painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso (18811973) and Francisco Zurbaran (15981664) who was nicknamed the Spanish Caravaggio. Female Artists in the National Gallery Collection Female painters are well represented at the gallery, and include the following artists and paintings: - Catharina van Hemessen (1527-1566), Portrait of a Man (1552) - Judith Leyster (1609-60), A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel (c.1635) - Marie Blancour, A Bowl of Flowers (c.1650) - Rachel Ruysch, (1664-1750), Flowers in a Vase (1690) - Rosalba Giovanna Carriera (1675-1757), Portrait of a Man (c.18th Century) - Elizabeth Louise Veigee Le Brun (1755-1842) Self Portrait, Straw Hat (1782) - Rosa Bonheur (1822-99), The Horse Fair (1855) - Berthe Morisot (1841-95), Summer's Day (c.1879) <a name="paintings"></a>Top 30 Paintings in the National Gallery Collection The Hay Wain, John Constable Mr and Mrs Andrews, Thomas Gainsborough <a href="../famous-paintings/arnolfini-portrait.htm">Arnolfini Portrait</a>, Jan Van Eyck Samson and Delilah, Peter Paul Rubens <a href="../famous-paintings/virgin-of-the-rocks.htm">Virgin of the Rocks</a>, Leonardo da Vinci Venus and Mars, Sandro Botticelli <a href="../famous-paintings/supper-at-emmaus.htm">Supper at Emmaus</a>, Caravaggio <a href="../famous-paintings/the-ambassadors-holbein.htm">The Ambassadors</a>, Hans Holbein the Younger Equestrian Portrait of Charles I, Anthony Van Dyck A Young Woman standing at a Virginal, Jan Vermeer Sunflowers, Vincent Van Gogh <a href="../paintings-analysis/bathers-at-asnieres.htm">Bathers at Asnières</a>, Georges Seurat The Fighting Temeraire, <a href="../famous-artists/turner.htm">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a> Bathers at La Grenouillère, Claude Monet <a href="../paintings-analysis/large-bathers-cezanne.htm">The Large Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses)</a>, Paul Cezanne The Madonna of the Pinks, Raphael The Baptism of Christ, Piero della Francesca <a href="../famous-paintings/bacchus-and-ariadne.htm">Bacchus and Ariadne</a>, Titian <a href="../famous-paintings/judgement-of-paris-rubens.htm">Judgement of Paris</a>, Rubens The Stonemason's Yard, Canaletto Whistlejacket, George Stubbs <a href="../famous-paintings/experiment-on-a-bird-in-the-air-pump.htm">An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump</a>, Joseph Wright of Derby The Wilton Diptych, artist unknown Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula, Claude Lorrain <a href="../famous-paintings/rokeby-venus.htm">The Rokeby Venus</a>, Diego Velazquez Madame de Pompadour at her Tambour Frame, Francois-Hubert Drouais Madame Moitessier, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres The <a href="../famous-paintings/battle-of-san-romano.htm">Battle of San Romano</a>, by the Florentine Paolo Uccello The Doge Leonardo Loredan, Giovanni Bellini Contact Details The National Gallery Trafalgar Square London WC2N 5DN Website: www.nationalgallery.org.uk Email: information@ng-london.org.uk Phone: +44 (207) 747-2885 </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td> For details of the development of painting and sculpture, see: <a href="../history-of-art.htm">History of Art</a>. For more information about the world's greatest art museums, see: <a href="../index.htm">Homepage</a>. <hr size="1"> <a rel="author" href="https://profiles.google.com/115076279462378566554#115076279462378566554"> <img src="http://www.google.com/images/icons/ui/gprofile_button-16.png" width="16" height="16"></a> <a href="../art-types.htm">Art Types</a> ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ART © visual-arts-cork.com. All rights reserved. </td> </tr> </table> <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-5047599-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script> </body> </html>

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National Gallery London