The National Gallery is an
art museum
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although ...
in
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster in Central London. It was established in the early-19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. Its name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Navy, ...
in the
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in Greater London, England. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It contains a large par ...
, in
Central London
Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning the City of London and several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local gove ...
, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current director of the National Gallery is
Gabriele Finaldi.
The National Gallery is an
exempt charity, and a
non-departmental public body
In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process o ...
of the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It holds the responsibility for Culture of the United Kingdom, culture a ...
. Its collection belongs to the government on behalf of the British public, and entry to the main collection is free of charge.
Unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the
British government
His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. bought
38 paintings from the heirs of
John Julius Angerstein in 1824. After that initial purchase, the gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, especially
Charles Lock Eastlake
Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (17 November 1793 – 24 December 1865) was a British Painting, painter, gallery director, collector and writer of the 19th century. After a period as Curator#Collections curator, keeper, he was the first director of ...
, and by private donations, which now account for two-thirds of the collection. The collection is smaller than many European national galleries, but encyclopaedic in scope; most major developments in Western painting "from
Giotto
Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an List of Italian painters, Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the International Gothic, Gothic and Italian Ren ...
to
Cézanne" are represented with important works. It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition, but this is no longer the case.
The present building, the third site to house the National Gallery, was designed by
William Wilkins. Building began in 1832 and it opened to the public in 1838. Only the façade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, as the building has been expanded piecemeal throughout its history. Wilkins's building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space; the latter problem led to the establishment of the
Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. The Sainsbury Wing, a 1991 extension to the west by
Robert Venturi and
Denise Scott Brown, is a significant example of
Postmodernist
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...
architecture in Britain.
History
The call for a National Gallery
The late 18th century saw the
nationalisation of royal or princely art collections across mainland Europe. The Bavarian royal collection (now in the
Alte Pinakothek, Munich) opened to the public in 1779, that of the
Medici in
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
around 1789 (as the
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery ( ; , ) is a prominent art museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of th ...
Gallery), and the Museum Français at the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
was formed out of the former French royal collection in 1793.
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
, however, did not follow other European countries, and the British
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world.
Spread among 13 occupied and historic List of British royal residences, royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King ...
still remains in the sovereign's possession. In 1777, the British government had the opportunity to buy an art collection of international stature, when the descendants of Sir
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (; 26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British Whigs (British political party), Whig statesman who is generally regarded as the ''de facto'' first Prim ...
put
his collection up for sale. The MP
John Wilkes
John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was an English Radicalism (historical), radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlese ...
argued for the government to buy this "invaluable treasure" and suggested that it be housed in "a noble gallery... to be built in the spacious garden of the British Museum". Nothing came of Wilkes's appeal and 20 years later the collection was bought in its entirety by
Catherine the Great
Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...
; it is now to be found in the
State Hermitage Museum in
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
.
A plan to acquire 150 paintings from the
Orléans collection, which had been brought to London for sale in 1798, also failed, despite the interest of both the King and the Prime Minister,
Pitt the Younger. The twenty-five paintings from that collection now in the gallery, including "NG1", arrived later by a variety of routes. In 1799, the dealer
Noël Desenfans offered a ready-made national collection to the British government; he and his partner Sir
Francis Bourgeois had assembled it for the king of
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, before the
Third Partition in 1795 abolished Polish independence. This offer was declined and Bourgeois bequeathed the collection to his old school,
Dulwich College
Dulwich College is a 2-18 private, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...
, on his death. The collection opened in 1814 in Britain's first purpose-built public gallery, the
Dulwich Picture Gallery. The Scottish dealer William Buchanan and the collector Joseph Count Truchsess both formed art collections expressly as the basis for a future national collection, but their respective offers (both made in 1803) were also declined.
Following the Walpole sale many artists, including
James Barry and
John Flaxman, had made renewed calls for the establishment of a National Gallery, arguing that a British school of painting could only flourish if it had access to the canon of European painting. The
British Institution, founded in 1805 by a group of aristocratic connoisseurs, attempted to address this situation. The members lent works to exhibitions that changed annually, while an art school was held in the summer months. However, as the paintings that were lent were often mediocre, some artists resented the Institution and saw it as a racket for the gentry to increase the sale prices of their
Old Master paintings. One of the Institution's founding members, Sir
George Beaumont, Bt, would eventually play a major role in the National Gallery's foundation by offering a gift of 16 paintings.
In 1823, another major art collection came on the market, which had been assembled by the recently deceased
John Julius Angerstein. Angerstein was a Russian-born émigré banker based in London; his collection numbered 38 paintings, including works by
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
and
Hogarth's ''
Marriage A-la-Mode'' series. On 1 July 1823,
George Agar-Ellis, a
Whig politician, proposed to the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
that it purchase the collection. The appeal was given added impetus by Beaumont's offer, which came with two conditions: that the government buy the
Angerstein collection
The Angerstein Collection comprises 38 paintings that were bought by the Government of the United Kingdom, British government from the collection of John Julius Angerstein after his death in 1823. They became the first works held by the National Ga ...
, and that a suitable building was to be found. The unexpected repayment of a war debt by
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
finally moved the government to buy Angerstein's collection, for £57,000.
Foundation and early history

The National Gallery opened in 1824 in Angerstein's former townhouse at No. 100
Pall Mall. Angerstein's paintings were joined in 1826 by those from Beaumont's collection, and in 1831 by the Reverend
William Holwell Carr's bequest of 35 paintings. Initially the Keeper of Paintings,
William Seguier, bore the burden of managing the gallery, but in July 1824 some of this responsibility fell to the newly formed board of trustees.
The National Gallery at Pall Mall was frequently overcrowded and hot, and its diminutive size in comparison with the Louvre in Paris was a cause of national embarrassment. But Agar-Ellis, by then a trustee of the gallery, appraised the site for being "in the very gangway of London"; this was seen as necessary for the gallery to fulfil its social purpose.
Subsidence
Subsidence is a general term for downward vertical movement of the Earth's surface, which can be caused by both natural processes and human activities. Subsidence involves little or no horizontal movement, which distinguishes it from slope mov ...
in No. 100 caused the gallery to move briefly to No. 105 Pall Mall, which the novelist
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope ( ; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among the best-known of his 47 novels are two series of six novels each collectively known as the ''Chronicles of Barsetshire ...
described as a "dingy, dull, narrow house, ill-adapted for the exhibition of the treasures it held". This in turn had to be demolished for the opening of a road to
Carlton House Terrace.
['Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery', ''Survey of London: volume 20: St Martin-in-the-Fields, pt III: Trafalgar Square & Neighbourhood''](_blank)
(1940), pp. 15–18. Date accessed: 15 December 2009.
In 1832, construction began on a new building by
William Wilkins on the northern half of the site of the old
Royal Mews in
Charing Cross, after the transformation of its southern half into
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster in Central London. It was established in the early-19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. Its name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Navy, ...
in the late 1820s. The location was a significant one, between the wealthy
West End and poorer areas to the east. The argument that the collection could be accessed by people of all
social classes outstripped other concerns, such as the pollution of central London or the failings of Wilkins's building, when the prospect of a move to
South Kensington was mooted in the 1850s. According to the Parliamentary Commission of 1857, "The ''existence'' of the pictures is not the end purpose of the collection, but the means only to give the people an ennobling enjoyment".
Growth under Eastlake and his successors
15th- and 16th-century Italian paintings were at the core of the National Gallery and for the first 30 years of its existence the trustees' independent acquisitions were mainly limited to works by
High Renaissance masters. Their conservative tastes resulted in several missed opportunities and the management of the gallery later fell into complete disarray, with no acquisitions being made between 1847 and 1850. A critical House of Commons report in 1851 called for the appointment of a director, whose authority would surpass that of the trustees. Many thought the position would go to the German art historian
Gustav Friedrich Waagen, whom the gallery had consulted on previous occasions about the lighting and display of the collections. However, the man preferred for the job by
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
,
Prince Albert and the Prime Minister,
Lord John Russell, was the Keeper of Paintings at the gallery, Sir
Charles Lock Eastlake
Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (17 November 1793 – 24 December 1865) was a British Painting, painter, gallery director, collector and writer of the 19th century. After a period as Curator#Collections curator, keeper, he was the first director of ...
. Eastlake, who was President of the
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...
, played an essential role in the foundation of the
Arundel Society and knew most of London's leading art experts.
The new director's taste was for the Northern and Early Italian Renaissance masters or "primitives", who had been neglected by the gallery's acquisitions policy but were slowly gaining recognition from connoisseurs. He made annual tours to the continent and to Italy in particular, seeking out appropriate paintings to buy for the gallery. In all, he bought 148 pictures abroad and 46 in Britain, among the former such seminal works as
Paolo Uccello
Paolo Uccello ( , ; 1397 – 10 December 1475), born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian Renaissance painter and mathematician from Florence who was notable for his pioneering work on visual Perspective (graphical), perspective in art. In his book ''Liv ...
's ''
The Battle of San Romano''. Eastlake also amassed a private art collection during this period, consisting of paintings that he knew did not interest the trustees. His ultimate aim, however, was for them to enter the National Gallery; this was duly arranged upon his death by his friend and successor as director,
William Boxall
Sir William Boxall (29 June 1800 – 6 December 1879) was an English painter and museum director.
Early life and education
He was born at Oxford on 29 June 1800, and baptised 29 July at St Michael's Church, Oxford, to Thomas Boxall (d. 1847) ...
, and his widow Lady
Elizabeth Eastlake.
One of the most persistent criticisms of the National Gallery, other than of the perceived inadequacies of the building, has been of its conservation policy. The gallery's detractors have accused it of having had an over-zealous approach to restoration. The first cleaning operation at the National Gallery began in 1844 after Eastlake's appointment as Keeper, and was the subject of attacks in the press after the first three paintings to receive the treatment – a
Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of clas ...
, a
Cuyp and a
Velázquez – were unveiled to the public in 1846. The gallery's most virulent critic was J. Morris Moore, who wrote a series of letters to ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' under the pseudonym "Verax" savaging the institution's cleanings. While an 1853 Parliamentary
select committee set up to investigate the matter cleared the gallery of any wrongdoing, criticism of its methods has been erupting sporadically ever since from some in the art establishment.

The gallery's lack of space remained acute in this period. In 1845, a large bequest of British paintings was made by
Robert Vernon; there was insufficient room in the Wilkins building so they were displayed first in Vernon's town house at No. 50 Pall Mall and then at
Marlborough House.
[Baker, Christopher and Henry, Tom (2001). "A short history of the National Gallery" in ''The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue''. London: National Gallery Company, pp. x–xix] The gallery was even less well equipped for its next major bequest, as
J. M. W. Turner was to bequeath the entire contents of his studio, excepting unfinished works, to the nation upon his death in 1851. The first 20 of these were displayed off-site in
Marlborough House in 1856.
Ralph Nicholson Wornum, the gallery's Keeper and Secretary, worked with
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...
to bring the bequest together. The stipulation in Turner's will that two of his paintings be displayed alongside works by
Claude is still honoured as of 2024, but his bequest has never been adequately displayed in its entirety; today the works are divided between Trafalgar Square and the Clore Gallery, a small purpose-built extension to
Tate Britain completed in 1985.
The third director, Sir
Frederic William Burton, laid the foundations of the collection of 18th-century art and made several outstanding purchases from English private collections. The acquisition in 1885 of two paintings from
Blenheim Palace, Raphael's ''
Ansidei Madonna'' and van Dyck's ''
Equestrian Portrait of Charles I'', with a record-setting grant of £87,500 from the
Treasury
A treasury is either
*A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry; in a business context, corporate treasury.
*A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be ...
, brought the gallery's "golden age of collecting" to an end, as its annual purchase grant was suspended for several years thereafter. When the gallery purchased
Holbein's ''
Ambassadors
An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...
'' from the
Earl of Radnor in 1890, it did so with the aid of private individuals for the first time in its history. In 1897, the formation of the National Gallery of British Art, known unofficially from early in its history as the
Tate Gallery, allowed some British works to be moved off-site, following the precedent set by the Vernon collection and the Turner Bequest. Works by artists born after 1790 were moved to the new gallery on
Millbank, which allowed
Hogarth, Turner and
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. ''Constable'' is commonly the rank of an officer within a police service. Other peo ...
to remain in Trafalgar Square.
Early 20th century
The agricultural crisis at the turn of the 20th century caused many aristocratic families to sell their paintings, but the British national collections were priced out of the market by American plutocrats. This prompted the foundation of the
National Art-Collections Fund, a society of subscribers dedicated to stemming the flow of artworks to the United States. Their first acquisition for the National Gallery was
Velázquez's ''
Rokeby Venus'' in 1906, followed by
Holbein's ''
Portrait of Christina of Denmark'' in 1909. However, despite the crisis in aristocratic fortunes, the following decade was one of several great bequests from private collectors. In 1909, the industrialist
Ludwig Mond gave 42 Italian Renaissance paintings, including the ''
Mond Crucifixion'' by
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
, to the gallery. Other bequests of note were those of
George Salting in 1910,
Austen Henry Layard in 1916 and Sir
Hugh Lane in 1917.
The initial reception of
Impressionist art at the gallery was exceptionally controversial. In 1906, Sir Hugh Lane promised 39 paintings, including
Renoir's ''
Umbrellas'', to the National Gallery on his death, unless a suitable building could be built in
Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
. Although eagerly accepted by the director
Charles Holroyd, they were received with extreme hostility by the trustees;
Lord Redesdale wrote that "I would as soon expect to hear of a Mormon service being conducted in
St. Paul's Cathedral as to see the exhibition of the works of the modern French Art-rebels in the sacred precincts of Trafalgar Square". Perhaps as a result of such attitudes, Lane amended his will with a codicil that the works should only go to Ireland, but crucially this was never witnessed. Lane died on board the in 1915, and a dispute began which was not resolved until 1959. Part of the collection is now on permanent loan to the
Hugh Lane Gallery and other works rotate between London and Dublin every few years.
A fund for the purchase of modern paintings established by
Samuel Courtauld in 1923 bought
Seurat's ''
Bathers at Asnières'' and other modern works for the nation; in 1934, many of these were transferred to the National Gallery from the Tate.
The director
Kenneth Clark
Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director and broadcaster. His expertise covered a wide range of artists and periods, but he is particularly associated with Italian Renaissa ...
's decision in 1939 to label a group of Venetian paintings, ''
Scenes from Tebaldeo's Eclogues'', as works by
Giorgione was controversial at the time, and the panels were soon identified as works by
Andrea Previtali by a junior curator Clark had appointed.
Second World War

Shortly before the outbreak of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
the paintings were evacuated to locations in
Wales
Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
, including
Penrhyn Castle and the university colleges of
Bangor and
Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth (; ) is a University town, university and seaside town and a community (Wales), community in Ceredigion, Wales. It is the largest town in Ceredigion and from Aberaeron, the county's other administrative centre. In 2021, the popula ...
. In 1940, during the
Battle of France
The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembour ...
, a more secure home was sought, and there were discussions about moving the paintings to Canada. This idea was firmly rejected by
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
, who wrote in a telegram to Kenneth Clark, "bury them in caves or in cellars, but not a picture shall leave these islands". Instead a slate quarry at
Manod, near
Blaenau Ffestiniog in North Wales, was requisitioned for the gallery's use.
In the seclusion afforded by the paintings' new location, the Keeper (and future director)
Martin Davies began to compile scholarly catalogues on the collection, with assistance of the gallery's library which was also stored in the quarry. The move to Manod confirmed the importance of storing paintings at a constant temperature and humidity, something the gallery's conservators had long suspected but had hitherto been unable to prove. This eventually resulted in the first air-conditioned gallery opening in 1949.
For the course of the war
Myra Hess and other musicians, such as
Moura Lympany, gave daily lunch-time recitals in the empty building in Trafalgar Square, to raise public morale as every concert hall in London was closed.
Art exhibitions were held at the gallery as a complement to the recitals. The first of these was ''British Painting since Whistler'' in 1940, organised by
Lillian Browse,
[Farr, Dennis (2006)]
"Empathy for Art and Artists: Lillian Browse, 1906–2005"
''Newsletter'' of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Issue 21: Spring 2006. Accessed March 2012. who also mounted the major joint retrospective ''Exhibition of Paintings by Sir
William Nicholson and
Jack B. Yeats'' held from 1 January to 15 March 1942, which was seen by 10,518 visitors.
[Clark, Sir Kenneth (1942). ''Exhibition of Paintings by Sir William Nicholson and Jack B. Yeats'', exhibition catalogue. London: National Gallery.][Reed, Patricia (2011). ''William Nicholson: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings''. London; New Haven: Modern Art Press, Yale University Press. . pp. 636–638] Exhibitions of work by war artists, including
Paul Nash,
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...
and
Stanley Spencer
Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE Royal Academy of Arts, RA (30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959) was an English painter. Shortly after leaving the Slade School of Art, Spencer became well known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if ...
, were also held; the
War Artists' Advisory Committee had been set up by Clark in order "to keep artists at work on any pretext". In 1941, a request from an artist to see
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...
's ''Portrait of Margaretha de Geer'' (a new acquisition) resulted in the "Picture of the Month" scheme, in which a single painting was removed from Manod and exhibited to the general public in the National Gallery each month. The art critic
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read wa ...
, writing that year, called the National Gallery "a defiant outpost of culture right in the middle of a bombed and shattered metropolis". The paintings returned to Trafalgar Square in 1945.
Post-war developments
The last major outcry against the use of radical conservation techniques at the National Gallery was in the immediate post-war years, following a restoration campaign by the gallery's chief restorer
Helmut Ruhemann while the paintings were in Manod Quarry. When the cleaned pictures were exhibited to the public in 1946 there followed a furore with parallels to that of a century earlier. The principal criticism was that the extensive removal of
varnish
Varnish is a clear Transparency (optics), transparent hard protective coating or film. It is not to be confused with wood stain. It usually has a yellowish shade due to the manufacturing process and materials used, but it may also be pigmente ...
, which was used in the 19th century to protect the surface of paintings but which darkened and discoloured over time, may have resulted in the loss of "harmonising" glazes added to the paintings by the artists themselves. The opposition to Ruhemann's techniques was led by
Ernst Gombrich, a professor at the
Warburg Institute
The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of cultural history and the role of images in culture – cros ...
who in later correspondence with a restorer described being treated with "offensive superciliousness" by the National Gallery. A 1947 commission concluded that no damage had been done in the recent cleanings.

In the post-war years, acquisitions have become increasingly difficult for the National Gallery as the prices for Old Masters – and even more so for the Impressionists and
Post-Impressionists – have risen beyond its means. Some of the gallery's most significant purchases in this period would have been impossible without the major public appeals backing them, including
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
's cartoon of ''
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist'' (bought in 1962) and
Titian
Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno.
Ti ...
's ''
Death of Actaeon'' (bought in 1972). The gallery's purchase grant from the government was frozen in 1985, but later that year it received an endowment of £50 million from Sir
Paul Getty, enabling many major purchases to be made.
In April 1985
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover and his brothers, the Hon.
Simon Sainsbury and Sir
Timothy Sainsbury, had made a donation that would enable the construction of the Sainsbury Wing.
The directorship of
Neil MacGregor saw a major rehang at the gallery, dispensing with the classification of paintings by national school that had been introduced by Eastlake. The new chronological hang sought to emphasise the interaction between cultures rather than fixed national characteristics, reflecting the change in art-historical values since the 19th century. In other respects, however, Victorian tastes were rehabilitated: the building's interiors were no longer considered an embarrassment and were restored, and in 1999 the gallery accepted a bequest of 26
Italian Baroque
Italian Baroque (or ''Barocco'') is a stylistic period in Italian history and art that spanned from the late 16th century to the early 18th century.
History
The early 17th century marked a time of change for those of the Roman Catholic religion ...
paintings from Sir
Denis Mahon. Earlier in the 20th century many considered the Baroque to be beyond the pale: in 1945 the gallery's trustees declined to buy a
Guercino from Mahon's collection for £200. The same painting was valued at £4 million in 2003. Mahon's bequest was made on the condition that the gallery would never
deaccession any of its paintings or charge for admission.
The respective remits of the National and Tate Galleries, which had long been contested by the two institutions, were more clearly defined in 1996. 1900 was established as the cut-off point for paintings in the National Gallery, and in 1997 more than 60 post-1900 paintings from the collection were given to the Tate on a long-term loan, in return for works by
Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been primarily associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements. He was also an influ ...
and others. However, future expansion of the National Gallery may yet see the return of 20th-century paintings to its walls.
21st century
In the 21st century there have been three large fundraising campaigns at the gallery: in 2004, to buy Raphael's ''
Madonna of the Pinks''; in 2008, for Titian's ''
Diana and Actaeon''; and in 2012, Titian's ''
Diana and Callisto''. Both Titians were bought in tandem with the
National Gallery of Scotland for £95 m. Both of these major works were sold from the
collection of the Duke of Sutherland. The National Gallery is now largely priced out of the market for Old Master paintings and can only make such acquisitions with the backing of major public appeals; the departing director
Charles Saumarez Smith expressed his frustration at this situation in 2007.
The National Gallery was sponsored by the Italian arms manufacturer
Finmeccanica between October 2011 and October 2012. The sponsorship deal allowed the company to use gallery spaces for gatherings, and the gallery was used to host delegates during the
DSEI arms fair and the
Farnborough Airshow. The sponsorship deal was ended a year early after protests.
In February 2014, the gallery purchased ''
Men of the Docks'' by the American artist
George Bellows for $25.5 million (£15.6 million). It was the first major American painting to be purchased by the gallery. The director,
Nicholas Penny, termed the painting a new direction for the gallery, a non-European painting in a European style. Its sale was controversial in the United States.
In 2018, the National Gallery was one of the first public galleries in London to charge more than £20 for admission to a special exhibition, the exhibition in question being of works by
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...
.
In February 2019, an
employment tribunal ruled that the gallery had incorrectly classed its team of educators as self-employed contractors. The educators were awarded the status of "workers" following legal action brought by 27 claimants. The case received considerable press and media coverage.
In 2024, the National Gallery celebrated its 200th anniversary with a range of programmes, events, and collaborations.
Architecture
William Wilkins's building
The first suggestion for a National Gallery on Trafalgar Square came from
John Nash, who envisaged it on the site of the
King's Mews, while a
Parthenon
The Parthenon (; ; ) is a former Ancient Greek temple, temple on the Acropolis of Athens, Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the Greek gods, goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of c ...
-like building for the
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...
would occupy the centre of the square. Economic recession prevented this scheme from being built, but a competition for the Mews site was eventually held in 1831, for which Nash submitted a design with
Charles Robert Cockerell as his co-architect. Nash's popularity was waning by this time, however, and the commission was awarded to
William Wilkins, who was involved in the selection of the site and submitted some drawings at the last moment. Wilkins had hoped to build a "Temple of the Arts, nurturing contemporary art through historical example", but the commission was blighted by parsimony and compromise, and the resulting building, which opened to the public on 9 April 1838, was deemed a failure on almost all counts.
The site only allowed for the building to be one room deep, as a workhouse and a barracks lay immediately behind. To exacerbate matters, there was a public right of way through the site to these buildings, which accounts for the access porticoes on the eastern and western sides of the façade. These had to incorporate columns from the demolished
Carlton House, and their relative shortness resulted in an elevation that was deemed excessively low, thus failing to provide Trafalgar Square with its desired commanding focal point to the north. Also recycled are the sculptures on the façade, originally intended for Nash's
Marble Arch but abandoned due to his financial problems. The eastern half of the building housed the Royal Academy until 1868, which further diminished the space afforded to the National Gallery.
The building was the object of public ridicule before it had even been completed, as a version of the design had been leaked to ''
The Literary Gazette'' in 1833. Two years before completion, its infamous "pepperpot" elevation appeared on the frontispiece of ''Contrasts'' (1836), an influential tract by the
Gothicist Augustus Pugin
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin ( ; 1 March 1812 – 14 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, artist and critic with French and Swiss origins. He is principally remembered for his pioneering role in the Gothic Revival architecture ...
, as an example of the degeneracy of the classical style. Even
William IV (in his last recorded utterance) thought the building a "nasty little pokey hole", while
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray ( ; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was an English novelist and illustrator. He is known for his Satire, satirical works, particularly his 1847–1848 novel ''Vanity Fair (novel), Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portra ...
called it "a little gin shop of a building". The twentieth-century architectural historian Sir
John Summerson echoed these early criticisms when he compared the arrangement of a
dome
A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...
and two diminutive
turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...
s on the roofline to "the clock and vases on a mantelpiece, only less useful". Sir
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was an English architect best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsi ...
's landscaping of Trafalgar Square, from 1840, included a north terrace so that the building would appear to be raised, thus addressing one of the points of complaint.
Opinion on the building had mellowed considerably by 1984, when
Prince Charles called the Wilkins façade a "much-loved and elegant friend", in contrast to a proposed extension. (''
See below'')
National Gallery London 2013 March.jpg, The elevation onto Trafalgar Square in 2013
National Gallery1836.jpg, The '' piano nobile'' and ground floor of Wilkins's building, before expansion. Note the passageways behind the east and west porticoes. Areas shaded in pink were used by the Royal Academy until 1868.
National Gallery 1st floor plan.svg, Plan of the first floor of the National Gallery in 2013
Alteration and expansion (Pennethorne, Barry and Taylor)
The first significant alteration made to the building was the single, long gallery added by Sir
James Pennethorne in 1860–1861. Ornately decorated in comparison with the rooms by Wilkins, it nonetheless worsened the cramped conditions inside the building as it was built over the original entrance hall. Unsurprisingly, several attempts were made either to completely remodel the National Gallery (as suggested by Sir Charles Barry in 1853), or to move it to more capacious premises in
Kensington
Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...
, where the air was also cleaner. In 1867 Barry's son
Edward Middleton Barry proposed to replace the Wilkins building with a massive classical building with four domes. The scheme was a failure and contemporary critics denounced the exterior as "a strong plagiarism upon St Paul's Cathedral".
With the demolition of the workhouse, however, Barry was able to build the gallery's first sequence of grand architectural spaces, from 1872 to 1876. Built to a polychrome
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century Revivalism (architecture), architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival architecture, Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival ar ...
design, the Barry Rooms were arranged on a
Greek cross
The Christian cross, with or without a figure of Jesus, Christ included, is the main religious symbol of Christianity. A cross with a figure of Christ affixed to it is termed a crucifix and the figure is often referred to as the ''corpus'' (La ...
plan around a huge central octagon. Though it compensated for the underwhelming architecture of the Wilkins building, Barry's new wing was disliked by Gallery staff, who considered its monumental aspect to be in conflict with its function as exhibition space. Also, the decorative programme of the rooms did not take their intended contents into account; the ceiling of the 15th- and 16th-century Italian gallery, for instance, was inscribed with the names of British artists of the 19th century. However, despite these failures, the Barry Rooms provided the gallery with a strong axial groundplan; this was to be followed by all subsequent additions to the gallery for a century, resulting in a building of clear symmetry.
Pennethorne's gallery was demolished for the next phase of building, a scheme by Sir
John Taylor extending northwards of the main entrance. Its glass-domed entrance vestibule had painted ceiling decorations by the
Crace family firm, who had also worked on the Barry Rooms. A fresco intended for the south wall was never realised.
GalerÃa Nacional, Londres, Inglaterra, 2014-08-11, DD 178.JPG, The Barry Rooms (1872–1876), designed by E. M. Barry
Bóveda de la sala 36, GalerÃa Nacional, Londres, Inglaterra, 2014-08-11, DD 165-167 HDR.JPG, The dome of Room 34, the central octagon of the Barry Rooms
Staircase hall of the National Gallery, London.jpg, The Staircase Hall (1884–1887), designed by Sir John Taylor, in a photograph of 2007. To the left is '' Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna'' by Frederic, Lord Leighton (a loan from the Royal Collection
The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world.
Spread among 13 occupied and historic List of British royal residences, royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King ...
since the 1990s).
Central Hall, National Gallery.jpg, The Central Hall, part of Sir John Taylor's additions
20th century: modernisation versus restoration
Later additions to the west came more steadily but maintained the coherence of the building by mirroring Barry's cross-axis plan to the east. The use of dark marble for doorcases was also continued, giving the extensions a degree of internal consistency with the older rooms. The classical style was still in use at the National Gallery in 1929, when a
Beaux-Arts–style gallery was built, funded by the art dealer and trustee
Lord Duveen. However, it was not long before the 20th-century reaction against Victorian attitudes became manifest at the gallery. From 1928 to 1952, the landing floors of Taylor's entrance hall were relaid with a new series of
mosaic
A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...
s by
Boris Anrep, who was friendly with the
Bloomsbury Group. These mosaics can be read as a satire on 19th-century conventions for the decoration of public buildings, as typified by the
Albert Memorial's ''
Frieze of Parnassus''. The central mosaic depicting ''The Awakening of the Muses'' includes portraits of
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device.
Vir ...
and
Greta Garbo, subverting the high moral tone of its Victorian forebears. In place of Christianity's
seven virtues, Anrep offered his own set of ''Modern Virtues'', including "Humour" and "Open Mind"; the allegorical figures are again portraits of his contemporaries, including Winston Churchill,
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
and
T. S. Eliot.
In the 20th century, the gallery's late Victorian interiors fell out of fashion. The Crace ceiling decorations in the entrance hall were not to the taste of the director
Charles Holmes, and were obliterated by white paint.
[They were restored only in 2005. ]
The North Galleries, which opened to the public in 1975, marked the arrival of
modernist architecture
Modern architecture, also called modernist architecture, or the modern movement, is an architectural architectural movement, movement and architectural style, style that was prominent in the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco Architectu ...
at the National Gallery. In the older rooms, the original classical details were effaced by partitions, daises and suspended ceilings, the aim being to create neutral settings which did not distract from contemplation of the paintings. But the gallery's commitment to modernism was short-lived: by the 1980s Victorian style was no longer considered anathema, and a restoration programme began to restore the 19th- and early 20th-century interiors to their purported original appearance. This began with the refurbishment of the Barry Rooms in 1985–1986. From 1996 to 1999 even the North Galleries, by then considered to "lack a positive architectural character", were remodelled in a classical style, albeit a simplified one.
Sainsbury Wing and later additions
The most important addition to the building in the late 20th century was the Sainsbury Wing, designed by the postmodernist architects
Robert Venturi and
Denise Scott Brown to house the collection of Renaissance paintings and built in 1991. The building occupies the "Hampton's site" to the west of the main building, where a department store of the same name had stood until its destruction in
the Blitz
The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War.
Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...
. The gallery had long sought expansion into this space and in 1982 a competition was held to find a suitable architect; the shortlist included a radical
high-tech proposal by
Richard Rogers, among others. The design that won the most votes was by the firm
Ahrends, Burton and Koralek, who then modified their proposal to include a tower, similar to that of the Rogers scheme. The proposal was dropped after the
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales (, ; ) is a title traditionally given to the male heir apparent to the History of the English monarchy, English, and later, the British throne. The title originated with the Welsh rulers of Kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd who, from ...
compared the design to a "monstrous
carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend". The term "monstrous carbuncle", for a modern building that clashes with its surroundings, has since become commonplace.
One of the conditions of the 1982 competition was that the new wing had to include commercial offices as well as public gallery space. However, in 1985 it became possible to devote the extension entirely to the gallery's uses, due to a donation of almost £50 million from
Lord Sainsbury and his brothers
Simon and Sir
Tim Sainsbury. A closed competition was held, and the schemes produced were noticeably more restrained than in the earlier competition.
In contrast with the rich ornamentation of the main building, the galleries in the Sainsbury Wing are pared down and intimate, to suit the smaller scale of many of the paintings. The main inspirations for these rooms are Sir
John Soane
Sir John Soane (; né Soan; 10 September 1753 – 20 January 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neoclassical architecture, Neo-Classical style. The son of a bricklayer, he rose to the top of his profession, becoming professor ...
's toplit galleries for the
Dulwich Picture Gallery and the church interiors of
Filippo Brunelleschi. (The stone dressing is in
pietra serena, the grey stone local to Florence.) The northernmost galleries align with Barry's central axis, so that there is a single vista down the whole length of the gallery. This axis is exaggerated by the use of
false perspective, as the columns flanking each opening gradually diminish in size until the visitor reaches the focal point (as of 2009), an altarpiece by
Cima of ''The Incredulity of Saint Thomas''. Venturi's postmodernist approach to architecture is in full evidence at the Sainsbury Wing, with its stylistic quotations from buildings as disparate as the clubhouses on Pall Mall, the
Scala Regia in the Vatican, Victorian warehouses and Ancient Egyptian temples.
Following the pedestrianisation of Trafalgar Square, the gallery is currently engaged in a masterplan to convert the vacated office space on the ground floor into public space. The plan will also fill in disused courtyards and make use of land acquired from the adjoining
National Portrait Gallery in St Martin's Place, which it gave to the National Gallery in exchange for land for its 2000 extension. The first phase, the East Wing Project designed by Jeremy Dixon and
Edward Jones, opened to the public in 2004. This provided a new ground level entrance from Trafalgar Square, named in honour of Sir
Paul Getty. The main entrance was also refurbished, and reopened in September 2005. Possible future projects include a "West Wing Project" roughly symmetrical with the East Wing Project, which would provide a future ground level entrance, and the public opening of some small rooms at the far eastern end of the building acquired as part of the swap with the National Portrait Gallery. This might include a new public staircase in the bow on the eastern façade. No timetable has been announced for these additional projects.
Renovation of the Sainsbury Wing
In April 2021, a jury short-listed six firms of architects –
Caruso St John,
David Chipperfield Architects, Asif Kahn,
David Kohn Architects,
Selldorf Architects, and Witherford Watson Mann Architects – in a competition for design proposals to upgrade the Sainsbury Wing.
A letter written in 1990 by one of the donors,
John Sainsbury, was discovered in 2023 during the demolition of two false columns in which he argued that "the false columns are a mistake of the architect and that we would live to regret our accepting this detail of his design."
In 2024, excavations for the Sainsbury Wing extension at Jubilee Walk uncovered evidence that the Anglo-Saxon settlement of
Lundenwic extended further to the west than had previously been supposed.
Incidents
In the National Gallery on 10 March 1914, Velázquez's ''
Rokeby Venus'' was damaged by
Mary Richardson, a campaigner for
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...
, in protest against the arrest of
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst (; Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women to win in 1918 the women's suffrage, right to vote in United Kingdom of Great Brita ...
the previous day. Later that month another
suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
attacked five
Bellinis, causing the gallery to close until the start of the
First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, when the
Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and p ...
called for an end to violent acts drawing attention to their plight.

In August 1961 an unemployed bus driver,
Kempton Bunton, stole
Goya's ''
Portrait of the Duke of Wellington'', in what remains the only successful theft from the gallery. Four years later, Bunton returned the painting voluntarily. Following a high-profile trial, he was found not guilty of stealing the painting, but guilty of stealing the frame.
In July 1987, a man entered the gallery armed with a shotgun concealed under his coat and shot Leonardo's cartoon of ''
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist''. The man, Robert Cambridge, told police that his intent had been to express his disgust with "political, social and economic conditions in Britain". Though the pellets did not penetrate the cartoon, it had to undergo extensive restoration. It was placed back on display the following year.
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...
's ''
Sunflowers'' was attacked at the gallery on 14 October 2022 by environmental activists from the
Just Stop Oil campaign, who threw
tomato soup at it.
Due to the protection of the
plexiglass
Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is a synthetic polymer derived from methyl methacrylate. It is a transparent thermoplastic, used as an engineering plastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and bran ...
, the painting was not harmed, but there was some minor damage to the frame, according to a spokesperson for the gallery.
On 6 November 2023, the ''Rokeby Venus'' was again attacked, by two
Just Stop Oil activists who smashed its protective glass with hammers.
List of directors
Collection highlights
*
Cimabue: ''
Virgin and Child with Two Angels''
*
Giotto
Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an List of Italian painters, Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the International Gothic, Gothic and Italian Ren ...
: ''
Pentecost
Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christianity, Christian holiday which takes place on the 49th day (50th day when inclusive counting is used) after Easter Day, Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spiri ...
''
* English or French Medieval: ''
Wilton Diptych''
*
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck ( ; ; – 9 July 1441) was a Flemish people, Flemish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Nort ...
: ''
Arnolfini Portrait'', ''
Portrait of a Man (Self-Portrait?)''
*
Pisanello: ''
The Vision of Saint Eustace''
*
Paolo Uccello
Paolo Uccello ( , ; 1397 – 10 December 1475), born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian Renaissance painter and mathematician from Florence who was notable for his pioneering work on visual Perspective (graphical), perspective in art. In his book ''Liv ...
: ''
The Battle of San Romano'', ''
Saint George and the Dragon''
*
Rogier van der Weyden
Rogier van der Weyden (; 1399 or 140018 June 1464), initially known as Roger de le Pasture (), was an Early Netherlandish painting, early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commis ...
: ''
The Magdalen Reading''
*
Masaccio
Masaccio (, ; ; December 21, 1401 – summer 1428), born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was a Florentine artist who is regarded as the first great List of Italian painters, Italian painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaiss ...
: ''
Madonna and Child
In Christian art, a Madonna () is a religious depiction of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a singular form or sometimes accompanied by the Child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word ...
''
*
Dieric Bouts: ''
The Entombment''
*
Piero della Francesca: ''
The Baptism of Christ''
*
Antonello da Messina: ''
Portrait of a Man'', ''
Saint Jerome in his Study''
*
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini (; c. 1430 – 29 November 1516) was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his father, ...
: ''
Agony in the Garden'', ''
Madonna del Prato'', ''
Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan''
*
Antonio and
Piero del Pollaiuolo: ''
Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian''
*
Sandro Botticelli: ''
The Mystical Nativity'', ''
Venus and Mars''
*
Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch (; ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch people, Dutch painter from Duchy of Brabant, Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, gene ...
: ''
Christ Crowned with Thorns''
*
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
: ''
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist'', ''
Virgin of the Rocks''
*
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...
: ''
Saint Jerome in the Wilderness''
*
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...
: ''
The Entombment'', ''
The Manchester Madonna''
*
Jan Gossaert: ''
Adoration of the Kings''
*
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
: ''
Ansidei Madonna'', ''
Garvagh Madonna'', ''
The Madonna of the Pinks'', ''
Portrait of Pope Julius II'', ''
Mond Crucifixion'', ''
Vision of a Knight''
*
Titian
Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno.
Ti ...
: ''
Aldobrandini Madonna'', ''
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
Hans Holbein the Younger ( , ; ; – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a German-Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He ...
: ''
The Ambassadors'', ''
Portrait of Christina of Denmark''
*
Parmigianino: ''
Portrait of a Collector'', ''
Vision of Saint Jerome''
*
Agnolo Bronzino
Agnolo di Cosimo (; 17 November 150323 November 1572), usually known as Bronzino ( ) or Agnolo Bronzino, was an Italians, Italian Mannerism, Mannerist painter from Florence. His sobriquet, ''Bronzino'', may refer to his relatively dark skin or r ...
: ''
Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time''
*
Tintoretto
Jacopo Robusti (late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594), best known as Tintoretto ( ; , ), was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized th ...
: ''
The Origin of the Milky Way''
*
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder ( , ; ; – 9 September 1569) was among the most significant artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaking, printmaker, known for his landscape art, landscape ...
: ''
Adoration of the Kings''
*
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Caliari (152819 April 1588), known as Paolo Veronese ( , ; ), was an Italian Renaissance painter based in Venice, known for extremely large history paintings of religion and mythology, such as ''The Wedding at Cana (Veronese), The Wedding ...
: ''
Adoration of the Magi'', ''
The Conversion of Mary Magdalene'', ''
The Family of Darius Before Alexander''
*
El Greco
Doménikos Theotokópoulos (, ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco (; "The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance, regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. ...
: ''
Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple''
*
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...
: ''
Boy Bitten by a Lizard'', ''
Salome with the Head of John the Baptist'', ''
Supper at Emmaus''
*
Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish painting, Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged comp ...
: ''
The Judgement of Paris''
*
Orazio Gentileschi: ''
The Finding of Moses''
*
Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi ( ; ; 8 July 1593) was an Italian Baroque painter. Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished 17th century, 17th-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing professional ...
: ''
Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria''
*
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter who was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythologic ...
: ''
The Adoration of the Golden Calf''
*
Diego Velázquez
Diego RodrÃguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptised 6 June 15996 August 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the Noble court, court of King Philip IV of Spain, Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He i ...
: ''
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary'', ''
Philip IV in Brown and Silver'', ''
Rokeby Venus''
*
Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck (; ; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy.
The seventh child of ...
: ''
Equestrian Portrait of Charles I'', ''
Lord John Stuart and His Brother, Lord Bernard Stuart''
*
Claude Lorrain: ''
Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba''
*
Frans Hals: ''
Young Man with a Skull''
*
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...
: ''
Belshazzar's Feast'', ''
Self-Portrait at the Age of 34'', ''
Self-Portrait at the Age of 63''
*
Johannes Vermeer: ''
Lady Seated at a Virginal'', ''
Lady Standing at a Virginal''
*
Meindert Hobbema: ''
The Avenue at Middelharnis''
*
Canaletto: ''
The Stonemason's Yard''
*
William Hogarth
William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraving, engraver, pictorial social satire, satirist, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from Realism (visual arts), realistic p ...
: ''
The Graham Children'', ''
Marriage A-la-Mode''
*
George Stubbs
George Stubbs (25 August 1724 – 10 July 1806) was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses. Self-trained, Stubbs learnt his skills independently from other great artists of the 18th century such as Joshua Reynolds and Thoma ...
: ''
Whistlejacket
''Whistlejacket'' is an oil painting, oil-on-canvas painting from about 1762 by the British artist George Stubbs showing the Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, Marquess of Rockingham's racehorse approximately at life-size, rea ...
''
*
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough (; 14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists o ...
: ''
Mr and Mrs Andrews'', ''
The Morning Walk''
*
Joseph Wright of Derby
Joseph Wright (3 September 1734 – 29 August 1797), styled Joseph Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter. He has been acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution".
Wr ...
: ''
An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump''
*
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...
: ''
Portrait of Doña Isabel de Porcel'', ''
Portrait of the Duke of Wellington''
*
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun: ''
Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat''
*
J. M. W. Turner: ''
The Fighting Temeraire'', ''
Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway''
*
John Constable
John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
: ''
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
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation, influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century a ...
: ''
Les Grandes Baigneuses''
*
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...
: ''
La Gare Saint-Lazare'', ''
Snow at Argenteuil''
*
Pierre-Auguste Renoir: ''
A Nymph by a Stream'', ''
The Umbrellas''
*
Henri Rousseau
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910)
at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Gug ...
: ''
Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!)''
*
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...
: ''
Sunflowers'', ''
A Wheatfield with Cypresses''
*
Georges Seurat: ''
Bathers at Asnières''
Artists in residence
Displays of works by living artists responding to the permanent collection have been a recurring feature of the gallery's exhibitions programme since 1977, when the first of a series of annual exhibitions titled ''The Artist's Eye'' was staged.
Anthony Caro,
Lucian Freud,
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
and
David Hockney
David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...
were among the artists who contributed to the series, which ran until 1990.
In 1980
Maggi Hambling was the first artist to take up residency in the gallery for a year, in a programme which ran until 1989. It was replaced the following year by the Associate Artist Scheme, in which an artist's stay was extended to a period of up to three years; this came to an end in 2016.
In 2020 a new Artist in Residence programme was established.
;Artists-in-Residence (1980–1989)
*
Maggi Hambling (1980–1981)
*
Jock McFadyen (1981–1982)
*
Michael Porter
Michael Eugene Porter (born May 23, 1947) is an American businessman and professor at Harvard Business School. He was one of the founders of the consulting firm The Monitor Group (now part of Deloitte) and FSG, a social impact consultancy. ...
(1982–1983)
*
Kevin O'Brien (1983–1984)
*
Hughie O'Donoghue (1984–1985)
*
June Redfern (1985–1986)
*
Vivien Blackett (1986–1987)
*
Philip Mead (1987–1988)
*
Madeleine Strindberg (1988–1989)
;Associate Artists (1989–2016)
*
Paula Rego (1989–1990)
*
Ken Kiff (1991–1993)
*
Peter Blake (1994–1996)
*
Ana Maria Pacheco (1997–1999)
*
Ron Mueck (2000–2002)
*
John Virtue (2003–2005)
*
Alison Watt (2006–2008)
*
Michael Landy (2009–2013)
*
George Shaw (2014–2016)
;Contemporary Fellowship Artist (2020–2022)
*
Nalini Malani
Nalini Malani (born 19 February 1946) is an Indian artist, among the country's first generation of video artists.
She works with several mediums which include theater, videos, installations along with mixed media paintings and drawings. The su ...
(2020–2022)
;Artists in Residence (2020–present)
*
Rosalind Nashashibi (2020)
*
Ali Cherri (2022)
*
Céline Condorelli (2023)
*
Katrina Palmer (2024)
*
Ming Wong (2025)
Transport connections
See also
*
List of most visited museums in the United Kingdom
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List of most visited art museums
A primary source for 2024 figures is the Art Newspaper whose most recent annual survey was published in March 2025. Other major sources included the newsroom of the Smithsonian Institution, the French Ministry of Culture, and the Association of ...
*
List of largest art museums
*
Micro gallery, installed in 1991
Explanatory notes
References
Citations
General sources
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External links
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Highlights from the collectionVirtual tour of the National Galleryprovided by
Google Arts & Culture
The National Gallery at Pall Mallfrom the ''
Survey of London''
''The Guardian'' review of "My National Gallery" 2024 film''The Guardian'' review of "National Gallery" 2014 film
{{Authority control
1824 establishments in England
Art museums and galleries in London
Art museums and galleries established in 1824
Buildings and structures completed in 1838
Charities based in London
Domes in the United Kingdom
Edward Middleton Barry buildings
Exempt charities
Georgian architecture in the City of Westminster
Government agencies established in 1824
Grade I listed buildings in the City of Westminster
Grade I listed museum buildings
Greek Revival architecture in the United Kingdom
Museums in the City of Westminster
Museums sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Museums with domes
Neoclassical architecture in London
Non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government
Order of Arts and Letters of Spain recipients