National Gallery
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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London's National Gallery, founded in 1824, houses a rich collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 in its home on Trafalgar Square. The collection belongs to the British public and entry to the main collection is free, although there are charges for entry to special exhibitions.
The National Gallery's beginnings were modest; unlike comparable galleries such as the Louvre in Paris or the Museo del Prado in Madrid, it was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 36 paintings from the banker John Julius Angerstein in 1824. After that initial purchase the Gallery has been shaped mainly by its early directors, notably Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which comprise two thirds of the collection. The resulting collection is small compared with the national galleries of continental Europe, but has a high concentration of important works across a broad art-historical scope, from the Early Renaissance to Post-impressionism, with relatively few weak areas.
The present building, on the northern side of Trafalgar Square, is the third to house the Gallery, and like its predecessors it has often been deemed inadequate. The façade by William Wilkins is the only part of his original building of 1832–8 that remains essentially unchanged, as the structure as a whole has been altered and expanded in a piecemeal manner throughout its history. Notable additions have been made by E. M. Barry and Robert Venturi. The current Director of the National Gallery is Nicholas Penny.
Collection highlights
- English or French Medieval: The Wilton Diptych
- Jan van Eyck: The Arnolfini Portrait
- Pisanello: The Vision of Saint Eustace
- Paolo Uccello: The Battle of San Romano, Saint George and the Dragon
- Rogier van der Weyden: The Magdalen Reading
- Masaccio: Madonna and Child
- Dieric Bouts: The Entombment
- Piero della Francesca: The Baptism of Christ
- Antonello da Messina: Portrait of a Man, St Jerome in his Study
- Giovanni Bellini: The Agony in the Garden, Madonna del Prato, Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan
- Piero del Pollaiolo: The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian
- Sandro Botticelli: Venus and Mars
- Hieronymus Bosch: Christ Crowned with Thorns
- Leonardo da Vinci: The Virgin of the Rocks, The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist
- Albrecht Dürer, St Jerome in the Wilderness
- Michelangelo: The Entombment, The Manchester Madonna
- Jan Gossaert: The Adoration of the Kings
- Raphael: The Aldobrandini Madonna, The Ansidei Madonna, Portrait of Pope Julius II, The Madonna of the Pinks, The Mond Crucifixion, Vision of a Knight
- Titian: Allegory of Prudence, Bacchus and Ariadne, Diana and Actaeon, Diana and Callisto, The Death of Actaeon, A Man with a Quilted Sleeve, Portrait of the Vendramin Family
- Hans Holbein the Younger: The Ambassadors
- Parmigianino: Portrait of a Collector, The Vision of Saint Jerome
- Agnolo Bronzino: Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time
- Tintoretto: The Origin of the Milky Way
- Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Adoration of the Kings
- Paolo Veronese: The Family of Darius before Alexander
- El Greco: Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple
- Caravaggio: Boy Bitten by a Lizard, Supper at Emmaus, Salome with the Head of John the Baptist
- Peter Paul Rubens: The Judgement of Paris
- Nicolas Poussin: The Adoration of the Golden Calf
- Diego Velázquez: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, The Rokeby Venus
- Anthony van Dyck: Equestrian Portrait of Charles I
- Claude Lorrain: Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba
- Rembrandt: Belshazzar's Feast
- Johannes Vermeer: Lady Standing at a Virginal, Lady Seated at a Virginal
- Canaletto: The Stonemason's Yard
- William Hogarth: Marriage à-la-mode
- George Stubbs: Whistlejacket
- Thomas Gainsborough: Mr and Mrs Andrews
- Joseph Wright of Derby: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump
- Francisco Goya: Portrait of the Duke of Wellington
- J. M. W. Turner: The Fighting Temeraire, Rain, Steam and Speed
- John Constable: The Cornfield, The Hay Wain
- Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: Madame Moitessier
- Eugène Delacroix: Ovid among the Scythians
- Edgar Degas: Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, Young Spartans Exercising
- Paul Cézanne: Les Grandes Baigneuses
- Claude Monet: Snow at Argenteuil
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: The Umbrellas
- Henri Rousseau: Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!)
- Vincent van Gogh: Sunflowers, A Wheatfield with Cypresses
- Georges Seurat: Bathers at Asnières
See also