The National Gallery

The UK cinema release of “The Da Vinci Code” brought The National Gallery new fame as the only place in the UK where fans of both the book and the film can see a painting that helped inspire a blockbuster close up. 'The Virgin of the Rocks' by Leonardo da Vinci plays a vital role in 'The Da Vinci Code', with Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks) discovering clues within the painting leading to the location of the Holy Grail.

The National Gallery was established in 1824 when the British House of Commons voted to buy the picture collection of banker John Angerstein at a cost of £57,000. The National Gallery opened to the public on May 10, 1824. Containing 38 paintings, it was housed in Pall Mall, in a building owned by Angerstein. In 1832 construction began on a new home for the Gallery, designed by William Wilkins.  Situated on the site of the King's Mews in Charing Cross, it was in an area that had been transformed over the 1820s into what is now Trafalgar Square.

The Barry Rooms, designed by E. M. Barry (1872–76).

During World War II the Gallery’s director Kenneth Clark was looking to ship all paintings overseas for safe keeping.  However on hearing this, Sir Winston Churchill sent a telegram to the gallery instructing them: “bury them in caves or in cellars, but not a picture shall leave these islands!”

The collections at the National Gallery are one of the most closely studied and researched in the world. Detailed examination of the pictures by curators, conservationists and scientists has provided a fascinating insight into the Gallery’s art history.  This knowledge is used in controlling the Gallery's environment and monitoring the paintings themselves for signs of deterioration.

The restoration of Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne was one of the most controversial ever undertaken at the National Gallery

Today, the National Gallery houses one of the finest collections of European paintings in the world and remains a nationally important, Grade I listed public building. The building along with the collections have been added to and developed throughout the years, with the number of works housed today being over 2,300, dating between 1250 and 1900. As the collection grew, more space was needed and the Sainsbury Wing was added by architect Robert Venturi to house the collection of Renaissance paintings in 1991.

The Sainsbury Wing

You will also find a statue of George Washington on the lawn in front of the National Gallery. This statue was a gift from the U.S state of Virginia and stands on soil imported from the United States, in order to honour Washington's declaration that he would never again set foot on British soil.

The 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.  Highlights of the collection include work by Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks, Rembrandt’s Belshazzar's Feast, Gainsborough’s Mr & Mrs Andrews, Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, Michelangelo’s The Entombment, Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond, Van Gogh’ Sunflowers and Constable’s The Haywain.

Van Gogh's Sunflowers