The National Gallery
London · United Kingdom · Founded 1824
An art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London.
6 million
Annual Visitors
2,300 paintings
Collection
2–3 hours
Recommended Visit
William Wilkins (1838) · E. M. Barry (extension) · Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown (Sainsbury Wing, 1991)
Architect
About The National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.
The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Its collection belongs to the government on behalf of the British public.
Unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein.
The present building, the third to house the National Gallery, was designed by William Wilkins from 1832 to 1838. Only the facade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time.
Masterworks & Must-See Highlights
The works that define The National Gallery — and why they matter.
The Arnolfini Portrait
Jan van Eyck · 1434
Room 56, Sainsbury Wing
Van Eyck's double portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife is a virtuoso display of oil painting technique — reflections in the convex mirror, the texture of fur and velvet, and the eerie precision of light through a window.
The Virgin of the Rocks
Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1491–1508
Room 66, Sainsbury Wing
The National Gallery's version of Leonardo's mysterious altarpiece — the Madonna shelters the infant Christ and St John in a grotto of strange geological formations. A slightly later and arguably finer version than the Louvre's.
Sunflowers
Vincent van Gogh · 1888
Room 43
One of Van Gogh's celebrated series of Sunflower paintings, made in Arles to decorate his Yellow House for Gauguin's arrival. The vivid yellows, achieved with chrome yellow pigment (which has darkened over time), were revolutionary.
The Hay Wain
John Constable · 1821
Room 34
Constable's bucolic scene of a farm wagon crossing the River Stour won a gold medal at the Paris Salon in 1824 and transformed landscape painting. Its naturalistic depiction of English countryside weather was revolutionary.
Collections & Highlights
Frequently Asked Questions
A small ask before you go
You've just explored one of humanity's greatest collections of beauty. Art has the power to move us, inspire us, and change how we see the world. But millions of people will never see beauty like this — not because the art isn't there, but because they can't see at all.
Preventable blindness, caused by conditions like cataracts and trachoma, affects people of all ages across the world's poorest communities. A small gift — for the cost of a museum ticket — can provide a simple surgery to restore someone's sight and transform their life.