National Gallery

04/12/2023

A moment of peace and quiet ☕

This week marks the death of French painter Jean-Siméon Chardin in 1779. Renowned for his carefully constructed genre scenes, his painting 'The House of Cards' beautifully illustrates the fragile nature of human endeavour. Here, a young boy stands at a small wooden table fully absorbed in building a house out of playing cards. He is Jean-Alexandre Le Noir, whose father, Jean-Jacques Le Noir, was a furniture dealer and cabinetmaker. He commissioned several paintings from Chardin.

The theme of a child building a house of cards was a popular one and paintings of this subject were often accompanied by moralising verses, as was Chardin’s painting when it was engraved. But there may also be a family connection. As a maker of fine furniture, Monsieur Le Noir may have hoped his son would follow him into the business. The boy’s card building is perhaps not just a game but may also be an exercise in sound methods of construction: https://bit.ly/39mPQVw

04/12/2023

The forgotten Renaissance painter...

Find out more about Francesco Pesellino, the artist in focus for our upcoming exhibition, 'Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed'.

The exhibition opens this Thursday in Room 46.

Works by the Florentine artist, who has been largely overlooked since his death aged 35, will go on show at the National Gallery

02/12/2023

Dreaming of warmer days ☀️

Georges Seurat was born in 1859. His monumental painting ‘Bathers at Asnières’ was the artist’s first major composition, painted when he was just twenty four. It depicts several men and boys relaxing in the sun on the banks of the Seine. Their clothing (the bowler hat, boots, and sleeveless vest) suggests that some of them are laborers, perhaps from one of gas plants and factories visible in the distance. An interesting contrast is created by the bourgeois couple, complete with parasol and top hat, being ferried across the river in a boat.

Although Seurat was often drawn to similar subjects as the Impressionists, his treatment was radically different. Not only is this picture much larger than most Impressionist paintings but it was executed in the studio rather than outdoors in just one or two sessions. In contrast to the spontaneity of Impressionist works, Seurat’s picture was meticulously planned. He completed a series of preparatory oil sketches of the site and numerous life drawings of the figures. Of these, around 13 oil sketches and 10 drawings survive: https://bit.ly/3uzTVSZ

01/12/2023

A culinary work of art 🥂

Our Christmas afternoon tea at Ochre has been named one of London's best. Book now: https://bit.ly/2zXwXpB

Time Out's guide to the best afternoon tea in London

01/12/2023

Why would a painting be semicircular? 🤔

Curatorial Fellow Nicholas explores how the shape of this painting could be a clue for the surprising place where it originally hung.

30/11/2023

“I know this guy! I’ve dated this guy!”

Author Jessie Burton shares her favourite Frans Hals portrait with actor Hayley Atwell.

29/11/2023

Find out what Apollo Magazine had to say about our latest free exhibition 'Discover Liotard and the Lavergne Family Breakfast'

Jean-Étienne Liotard depicted the same scene first in pastel, then 23 years later in oils. Kirsten Tambling compares both versions at the National Gallery in London

28/11/2023

Céline Condorelli wants you to experience art differently 👀

27/11/2023

Feeling a little snowed under? 🌨️

Snow scenes were a particular favourite among the Impressionists and artists such as Monet, Pissarro and Sisley painted several canvases that explore the way sunlight plays upon the snow at different times of day.

Let us know which of these wintry scenes is your favourite in the comments below!

1) 'Fox Hill, Upper Norwood', Camille Pissarro, 1870.
2) 'The Watering Place at Marly-le-Roi', Alfred Sisley, 1875.
3) 'Snow Scene at Argenteuil', Claude Monet, 1875.

25/11/2023

Can you guess the ? 🤔

Look very carefully and you'll see a minute signature and date on the sheet music that pokes out from an open drawer.

(We’ll give you a clue, it is currently on display in our latest free exhibition…)

Find out the answer on our website: https://bit.ly/3gR1VIO

23/11/2023

Coming up roses 🌹

These stunning still lifes are more than just pretty pictures. The Dutch Republic experienced a huge upsurge of interest in the natural sciences during the 17th century and flower paintings became not only a beautiful decorative addition to a wealthy household but also demonstrated the owner’s interest in science. Artists at the time began to use newly invented microscopes to enable them to paint plants, insects, and small animals in exceptionally accurate detail.

Many of these beautiful bouquets would not have existed in real life, instead the artist would have created preliminary drawings of each flower in bloom before bringing them together in the final composition. Which is your favourite?

1) 'Flowers in a Glass Vase' by Jacob van Walscapelle, 1670.
2) 'A Still Life of Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase' by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, 1609.
3) 'Flowers in a Vase with Shells and Insects' by Balthasar van der Ast, 1630.
4) 'Flowers in a Vase' by Rachel Ruysch, 1685.

21/11/2023

One of Canaletto’s early masterpieces ✨

This intimate view of Venice, weather-beaten and dilapidated, is regarded as of one of Canaletto’s masterpieces, capturing the real atmosphere of the city. It must be shortly after dawn: the sun is rising in the east and a cockerel crows on a windowsill to the left. Workmen chisel away at pieces of stone scattered across the foreground and in front of a simple wooden hut on the right.

This square, known as the ‘Campo San Vidal’, was not usually a mason’s yard, it has been temporarily transformed into a workshop while repairs are done to the nearby church of San Vidal. The blocks of dense limestone commonly used for buildings in Venice must have been brought by water to the square. Everyday life continues around the labouring stonemasons. To the left, a mother rushes to comfort her child who has fallen backwards and is watched by both her daughter and the nosy neighbour airing the bedding out of the window above. Beyond the square is the Grand Canal, which appears rather less grand than usual when viewed from this angle. Here, gondoliers await their first passengers of the day, while one boat crosses the smooth green water.

Want to learn more? Give the gift of Membership this Christmas and experience our collection like never before with our new exclusive 'National Treasures' film series.

Find out more: https://bit.ly/3SMjaLO

19/11/2023

Actor, musician, or jester? 🤔

Join exhibition co-curator Charlotte Wytema as she takes a closer look at one of Frans Hals's most captivating portraits, 'The Lute Player'.

Join as a Member today to hear more from our Curators in an exclusive live tour from our five star Frans Hals exhibition. Find out more here: https://bit.ly/48RMZ3j

18/11/2023

A lost masterpiece, discovered 140 years later 🕯️

'A Young Woman kneeling at a Prayer Desk' by Scottish painter Sir David Wilkie depicts the young Lady Augusta Phipps, the daughter of the 1st Earl Mulgrave. Wilkie captures with great accuracy and delicacy the face of a young girl poised between childhood and adulthood. The portrait has added poignancy as it was painted in 1813, the year Lady Augusta died. It may have been intended as a memorial to her.

This touching portrait and masterpiece of British art appeared to be lost forever after being put up for sale by a relative of the 1st Earl Mulgrave in 1872. Yet 140 years later it was discovered by chance in the USA after its existence was confirmed by an oil sketch belonging to the artist’s brother, Captain Wilkie.

'A Young Woman kneeling at a Prayer Desk' became part of our collection in 2014 thanks to the generous gift left to the Gallery by the late Marcia Lay, who taught at Lordswood Girls School, Harborne, for more than 20 years.

Learn more about legacy gifting on our website: https://bit.ly/47xSSBL

17/11/2023

Bellotto’s ‘Fortress of Konigstein from the North’ is unique in its depiction of a fortified location within an extensive panoramic landscape.

But that this painting was saved for the nation thanks to two generous legacy gifts? By leaving a gift in your Will, you can ensure a better future for the Gallery and generations of future visitors.

Find out more about legacy giving: https://bit.ly/3LLdOMI

17/11/2023

Why does this painting still intrigue us nearly 500 years since it was created? 👀

Bronzino was born in 1503. Join us we take a closer look at his most complex and enigmatic paintings, 'An Allegory with Venus and Cupid'.

16/11/2023

Two nearly identical paintings are reunited for the first time in 250 years ✨

Long regarded as his masterpiece, 'The Lavergne Family Breakfast' is one of Liotard’s largest and most ambitious works in pastel. Despite the medium’s notorious delicacy, he skilfully reproduces complex textures: the sheen on the metal coffee pot, the shiny ceramic jug, the silky fabrics and reflections, in the black lacquer tray. Liotard was extremely versatile, producing works in pastel, oil, enamel, chalk and even on glass. Highly unusually, he returned to ‘The Lavergne Family Breakfast’ 20 years after he created it and made an exact replica in oil.

Join us as we reunite, for the first time in 250 years, Liotard’s pastel and oil versions of this charming double portrait in our free exhibition, 'Discover Liotard and the Lavergne Family Breakfast'.

Book your free ticket. Until 3 March 2024: https://bit.ly/3gR1VIO

15/11/2023

How does a 200-year-old collection continue to inspire artists? 🎨

Colin Wiggins and Priyesh Mistry explore how contemporary artists have responded to our collection since the 1980s.

Watch the full discussion: https://bit.ly/3SIzIEH

15/11/2023

'It’s the most luxurious game of spot-the-difference ever' - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Discover what Time Out had to say about our upcoming exhibition 'Discover Liotard and the Lavergne Family Breakfast’ opening 16th November: https://bit.ly/40FmQRx

Perfect pastels and delicious coffee

14/11/2023

Gardens in Giverny 🌸

Claude Monet was born in 1840. In 1893 the celebrated painter bought a plot of land next to his house in Giverny. He had already planted a colourful flower garden but now he wanted to create a water garden ‘both for the pleasure of the eye and for the purpose of having subjects to paint'. He enlarged the existing pond, filling it with exotic new hybrid water lilies, available in yellows, pinks, whites, and violets.

Monet then erected a Japanese bridge over the western end of the pond that took its inspiration from the bridges in ukiyo-e Japanese prints. He was a keen collector of these prints and owned a copy of Hiroshige’s ‘Wisteria at Kameido Tenjin Shrine’, one of the many prints that features a curved bridge. In a more general sense, the water garden reflected Monet’s admiration for the Japanese appreciation of nature.

This new water garden became the main obsession of Monet’s later career, and the subject of around 250 paintings, including this now famous composition ‘The Water-Lily Pond’: https://bit.ly/3BQOLQA

13/11/2023

Counting down the days...🎄🕰️

If you can't wait for Christmas, our Shop has plenty to help you get in the festive spirit. Our range includes advent calendars, Christmas cards, decorations and more, inspired by National Gallery paintings.

Head to our online shop now and get free shipping on orders over £50. T&Cs apply: https://bit.ly/40zxDwy

13/11/2023

A breath of fresh air 🍂

Camille Pissarro died in 1903. His painting of 'Fox Hill, Upper Norwood' is one of 12 surviving pictures that he painted while living in London from late 1870 to mid-1871. He and his family arrived in early December 1870 and settled briefly in the south London village.

The winter of his arrival was particularly cold, enabling Pissarro to continue painting the type of winter landscapes he had produced in France in the winter of 1868. 'Fox Hill, Upper Norwood' is perhaps the first picture he painted in London. One of the more rural scenes of the group, we see a simple road flanked by houses, chimney smoke merging with the clouds. Three people, two women and a man in a top hat with a walking stick, pass each other, their wintry attire matching the shrubbery and bare trees: https://bit.ly/353NAwu

10/11/2023

Introducing, the Graham Children 💙

British painter William Hogarth was born in 1697. His charming group portrait ‘The Graham Children’ depicts the four young children of Daniel Graham, the Royal Apothecary to George I and George II. In order of age, they are Henrietta Catherine (aged 9), Richard Robert (aged 7), Anna Maria (aged 5) and Thomas the baby in a gilded carriage decorated with a bird.

Baby Thomas had tragically passed away when Hogarth was working on the picture, and his death may have been the reason the portrait was commissioned. Here he is depicted as a lively and happy baby, reaching for the fruit held by his older sister, Henrietta. Seated beneath a goldfinch in a gilded cage, his brother Richard Robert plays a bird organ while the younger daughter, Anna Maria, starts dancing. The family’s grey cat startles the goldfinch by scrambling with its claws up the back of the chair in the same way that death suddenly snatched the youngest Graham child. Here, Hogarth captures the transience of childhood and of life itself: https://bit.ly/3bA3F2V

10/11/2023

Celebrating 120 years of the Art Fund 🎉

This week we're celebrating the 120th anniversary of the Art Fund, an independent charity that secures works of art for the UK’s public collections. It has a long history of supporting acquisitions here at the National Gallery, and in 2009, pledged £1 million towards the campaign to secure Titian’s 'Diana and Actaeon', its largest ever grant for a single work of art.

Altogether Art Fund has helped the National Gallery to acquire 124 works of art through gifts and grant awards. Discover just some of the masterpieces on our website: https://bit.ly/3FFVGQS

09/11/2023

Katrina Palmer is our new Artist in Residence for 2024.

Palmer’s work explores a range of spaces from island quarries to offices, prisons to coastal landscapes. Using objects, sound, writing and drawing she investigates the possibilities of sculpture through text and language.

She will begin her residency in December 2023: https://bit.ly/46hkk5j

Supported by Hiscox Insurance

08/11/2023

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Times
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Observer

Have you seen our latest blockbuster show, 'The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Frans Hals'?

Four hundred years since they were painted, Frans Hals’s portraits still breathe with life. There’s the hint of a smile, a hand resting nonchalantly on a hip and, just occasionally, a burst of laughter. Hals was one of the most sought-after painters of his generation, creating a new and innovative style of portrait that depicted relaxed, lively sitters, who were often smiling, and even laughing.

This five-star exhibition is the first major retrospective of Hals in more than thirty years, bringing together over fifty of Hals’s finest works, including the exceptional, first-ever loan of his most famous picture, ‘The Laughing Cavalier’ (1624), from The Wallace Collection.

Book your ticket. Members go free. Discounted tickets available from 5:30pm on Fridays: https://bit.ly/3Tg8oKU

08/11/2023

An update on 'The Rokeby Venus', which has been removed from display and examined by Conservators.

07/11/2023

Luscious lace and bedazzled bodices ✨

Can you guess the ? In this portrait the sitter places her hand over her elaborately embroidered bodice. The vertical lines of bright yellow buttons add to the sense of a rather rigid, upright attitude.

(We’ll give you a clue, she’s currently on display in our latest five-star exhibition…)

Find out the answer on our website: https://bit.ly/3t50I2F

04/11/2023

‘What shall I do? Where is the block?’ 💔

Paul Delaroche, who died on 1856, depicts the final moments of the nine-day queen Lady Jane Grey, before her ex*****on at Tower Hill on 12 February 1554. Lady Jane is being guided towards it by Sir John Brydges, Lieutenant of the Tower. Her outer clothing has already been removed and is gathered in the lap of a lady-in-waiting, who has slumped to the ground. To the right, the ex*****oner stands waiting, ominously.

Delaroche’s choice of British subject matter reflects the French fascination with English culture in the 1820s and 1830s. Contemporary French viewers would also have been alert to the parallels between Tudor history and relatively recent events in France after the Revolution of 1789, most obviously, the similar fates of Lady Jane Grey and Marie-Antoinette, who had faced the guillotine in 1793. Delaroche turns an event from British history into a compelling visual spectacle that also served as a commentary on France’s recent and bloody past: https://bit.ly/3mDhBzo

02/11/2023

Experience our collection in a new way ✨

Our 2023 Artist in Residence Céline Condorelli invites visitors to experience the Gallery through her multi-sensory installation 'Pentimenti' (The Corrections). Have a seat, or even a lie down as you observe her richly coloured printed drapes and listen to the voices and music of Trafalgar Square through the Gallery floor.

Find out more on our website: https://bit.ly/3sO5m8F

Until 7 January 2024.

01/11/2023

Snakes for arms, scaly legs, and moth-like wings 😱

On All Saint's Day, Curator Daniel Sobrino Ralston tells us why Bermejo's late Gothic-demon was the stuff of nightmares in its day.

Watch the full talk on Bartolomé Bermejo's 'Saint Michael Triumphs over the Devil': https://bit.ly/3QkyZqp

31/10/2023

35 paintings, an everlasting legacy ✨

Johannes Vermeer is one of the great Dutch masters, although only about 35 paintings by him have survived. Born in 1632, his domestic genre pieces have a characteristic pearly light. In 'A Young Woman seated at a Virginal', a colourful hanging tapestry has been swept to one side to reveal a young woman seated at a keyboard. She gazes out directly at us, her voluminous skirts enveloping her seat. The light catches against the fabric’s deep blue folds, contrasting against the muted wall behind her. In the foreground a viol has been placed against her virginial, as if waiting for a fellow musician to accompany her: https://bit.ly/3QCzc9O

30/10/2023

Madeleine, a poet from New Orleans, discovers her moving family history can be told through two pictures in neighbouring galleries.

She visited the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery in London to tell the story of these Linked Lives.

Please note that the film contains references to true stories of enslaved people, which some may find distressing.

30/10/2023

Freeze the day ❄️

Today marks the 184th birthday of Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley, born in 1839. He painted this winter scene in the small village of Marly-le-Roi in early 1875, soon after he moved there. The village was the site of the Château de Marly, which had been built in the late 17th century for Louis XIV, King of France, as a retreat from Versailles. It was later demolished; the last remnants of the château’s grand water gardens are visible in the foreground of the painting. Sisley lived close by and painted almost 20 pictures that include it.

Sisley probably worked on the picture outdoors in one sitting. It looks as though it was painted quickly using a limited range of colours. The paint has been thinly applied and the rapid brushwork is clearly visible, particularly in the foreground. A few details and colour highlights were added once the paint had dried: https://bit.ly/35Gpae1

29/10/2023

When someone reminds you it’s getting dark at 4pm…😒

Parmigianino’s ‘Portrait of a Collector’ depicts an unknown man seated at a table, wearing a large black fur-lined coat and black hat. He has an unusual expression, almost a sneer, with pursed lips and a lined forehead.

Various objects around the sitter attest to his role as a collector. His right-hand rests beside a bronze statuette of a woman, who holds a dagger pointing towards her abdomen. She may represent the Roman heroine Lucretia who stabbed herself to defend her honour. Beside the statuette lie four ancient coins. There was considerable interest in ancient coins among collectors in Parma at this time. Behind the sitter is a broken fragment of a pseudo-antique relief of ‘Venus and Cupid with Mars’. These ‘antique’ figures are constructed in Parmigianino’s own graceful style. While the antique objects surrounding the man reveal his cultured tastes, the Breviary, or prayer book in his hand demonstrates his Christian faith: https://bit.ly/2z2nFYz

28/10/2023

The painter of Venice 🎨

Landscape painter Canaletto was a highly influential artist and he was famed for his evocative views of Venice. But the Italian painter Bellotto was also his nephew? While working in his uncle’s studio, Bellotto created his own versions of Canaletto’s iconic views.

Can you tell which is which? Find out on our website: https://bit.ly/3eXwnA1

27/10/2023

How was Dame Paula Rego inspired by the Gallery's collection during her time as our first Associate Artist in 1990?

Explore why Rego chose to accept the Gallery's invite to become our Associate Artist and the importance of her work, 'Crivelli's Garden'.

27/10/2023

Last chance to see! 📣

This weekend is your last chance to see our exhibition 'Paula Rego: Crivelli's Garden'. From the Virgin Mary, Saint Catherine, Mary Magdalene, and Delilah, discover the stories and legends behind the famous female figures found in Rego’s monumental painting, and how its narrative was inspired by a 15th century masterpiece.

Book your free ticket: https://bit.ly/3ozcfFw