Your saves are on this device only.
Your browser may clear them at any time. You won't be able to see them on other devices. Create a free account or sign in to keep them safe in the cloud.
Public and commercial galleries, sculptures on streets, artists' houses and famous auction houses. Use the filters to narrow it down. Exhibitions are listed where possible.
Western painting from Giotto to Cézanne, 2,300 pictures on one floor, free, on the north side of Trafalgar Square.
Public galleryFree
Also in Museums.
Unlike the Louvre or the Prado, the National Gallery was not a royal collection thrown open; Britain bought its one. In 1824 Parliament paid £57,000 for the thirty-eight paintings of the banker John Julius Angerstein and hung them in his house at 100 Pall Mall, and the collection has been built since by purchase and by gift, two-thirds of it given. William Wilkins's building on the north side of Trafalgar Square opened in 1838 and was thought too small almost at once; the Sainsbury Wing of 1991, by Venturi and Scott Brown, added the west end and holds the earliest pictures. The gallery marked its two hundredth birthday in 2024 and reopened the refurbished Sainsbury Wing in 2025.
It is small for a national gallery, 2,300 paintings, and chosen so that nearly every step in Western painting between the 1250s and 1900 is here in a first-rate example: Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks and his cartoon of the Virgin and Child, bought by public subscription in 1962, Holbein's Ambassadors, Velázquez's Rokeby Venus, Turner's Fighting Temeraire, Constable's Hay Wain, Seurat's Bathers at Asnières and Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Entry to all of it is free. Nobody sees it in a visit and the room plans by the door mean nobody needs to; pick six pictures and come back.
Step-free access
| Monday | 10:00 – 18:00 |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | 10:00 – 18:00 |
| Wednesday | 10:00 – 18:00 |
| Thursday | 10:00 – 18:00 |
| Friday | 10:00 – 21:00 |
| Saturday | 10:00 – 18:00 |
| Sunday | 10:00 – 18:00 |
Submit a correction for this listing.
Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.