A Brief History of the National Gallery [antikvár]

THE NATIONAL GALLERY • PAST AND PRESENT above: The National Gallery in its very early days, pre-1837. This picture, by W. Mackenzie, (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum) shows the interior of Mr. Angerstein's house at No. 100 Pall Mall; most of the pictures visitjle are part of the Angerstein collection which was not, as is sometimes supposed, bequeathed to the nation but purchased by the nation from the owner's son after there had been alarm that the collection was to be sold abroad. On the central wall at the back can be seen Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne (see page 23) which was purchased by the Gallery in 1826; at the right is the large Angerstein Sebastiano del Piombo Raising of Lazarus (now No. 1 in the Gallery inventory). The crowded appearance of the rooms shows that already there was not enough space for expansion, and Mr. Angerstein's house was eventually left—for the site of the Gallery today at Trafalgar Square. facing page: a view of some of the air-conditioned rooms opened in 1956 makes almost too neat a contrast. Here the pictures are hung without glass and not only in a physical atmosphere which helps to preserve them but spaced on the walls in a way which allows each to exist as a painting in its own right. The rooms are decorated with discreet simplicity so that nothing distracts from the pictures; those in the view here are chiefly Italian pictures of the early Renaissance, mostly painted on wood and therefore vulnerable to climatic changes.