National Gallery

The National Gallery was founded in a way unlike most European national galleries: not from a royal collection, but in 1824 when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of the banker John Julius Angerstein. Private gifts built the rest; they still account for about two-thirds of the collection. The aim, as a parliamentary commission put it in 1857, was to give the whole population access to great pictures, and that is why the gallery stayed on Trafalgar Square, between the rich West End and the poorer districts to the east, and why entry to the main collection is still free.

The collection of more than 2,300 paintings is compact but covers Western painting from the 13th century to 1900 with remarkable consistency. A few rooms give its range. Holbein's The Ambassadors, bought in 1890, with its distorted skull that snaps into focus from one side. Velázquez's Rokeby Venus, acquired in 1906. Leonardo's cartoon of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, bought after a public appeal in 1962. And the room where, following his will, two of Turner's paintings hang beside two by Claude, the painter he wanted to be measured against. Around them run Italian altarpieces, Dutch interiors, Rubens, Rembrandt and the Impressionists.

The building has always been controversial. William Wilkins's facade, opened in 1838, was mocked from the start, and a lack of space pushed British art out to what became the Tate. The Sainsbury Wing, the 1991 extension to the west by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, is one of Britain's best-known postmodern buildings and now serves as the main entrance. A further expansion with a new wing is planned for the 2030s, so some rooms may be closed or rearranged.

Getting there

The gallery occupies the north side of Trafalgar Square in central London. Charing Cross, both the Underground and the mainline station, is the closest stop. The nearest airport is London City (LCY), about 13 km away.