Samuel Barnett

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.

In 2019, it was ranked seventh in the world on the List of most visited art museums.

Unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein in 1824.

It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition,but this is no longer the case.

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, as the building has been expanded piecemeal throughout its history.

The current Director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi.

From 1837 until 1868 the Royal Academy was housed in the east wing of the building.