200 YEARS OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY

As the National Gallery celebrates its 200th birthday this May, Caroline Wheater discovers how the priceless art collection was born from the donations and bequests of wealthy art-lovers who wanted to share their treasures with the People

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The National Gallery's neoclassical portico soars above Trafalgar Square, marking out the home of some of the world's most dazzling paintings. In Room 34 alone, hung against blue damask walls, visitors can see Mrs Siddons by Gainsborough, Whistlejacket by Stubbs, and An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby'. A meander across marble and parquet floors leads to Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Seurat's Bathers at Asnières in Room 43, Holbein's The Ambassadors in Room 12, and in the quaintly named Room 17a, Leonardo da Vinci's ethereal Burlington House Cartoon. This preparatory drawing by the Renaissance genius has attracted visitors since 1962, when it was bought for £1,763,000; a sum raised by art charities, Gallery supporters and a government grant.

With over 2,300 paintings to its name, the National Gallery is one of the greatest public assemblages of art in the world. Not only is it a visual feast, it's an encyclopaedic record of the history of painting, as archivist Nick Smith explains: 'Rather than trying to amass as many Rembrandts or Raphaels as it can, the Gallery's concern is to acquire the very best paintings by artists of every major tradition of art, subdivided many times, from the artists of Renaissance Italy to the French Impressionists. You can come to London and see the progression of Western European art in one place, from the late 13th century to the early 20th century."