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Manet's barmaid and Van Gogh's bandaged ear, up a spiral staircase in Somerset House.
HistoryArt & designPermanent
One of the great small collections, in the north wing of Somerset House where the Royal Academy hung its summer shows for a century. It runs from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century — Cranach, Rubens, Tiepolo, a room of Bloomsbury painting — but the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists on the top floor are what people climb the stairs for: Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, with the reflection that does not add up; Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear; Cézanne, Degas, Seurat, Gauguin, Modigliani. Samuel Courtauld bought most of it in the 1920s when British collectors still thought the French were a fad. The LVMH Great Room at the top is worth standing in on its own.
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