National Gallery
The National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, is one of London’s defining art institutions because it began not with royal collecting, but with a government purchase in 1824. The museum opened after the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein, and it has since grown to house more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. Its present building is the third home for the collection. Designed by William Wilkins in Georgian style, building began in 1832 and it opened to the public in 1838; the Trafalgar Square façade remains essentially unchanged. The museum’s expansion tells its own story: criticism of Wilkins’s design and lack of space helped drive the creation of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. …
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