The Museum is open daily
from 10am to 6pm
and Friday until 9pm.
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square,
London WC2N 5DN
The closest stations are :
The National Gallery was established in 1824 through the buying of 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein, an English businessman and collector. At the time of the opening, it was housed in Angerstein's former townhouse at No. 100 Pall Mall. It then moved to No. 105 Pall Mall. In 1838, the collection moved to a new building designed by William Wilkins, looking south across Trafalgar Square, where it still is today. The building was expanded in 1860, 1876, 1886, and 1975. In 1991 the Sainsbury Wing was built.
The collection comprises some 2,600 works and is regarded by many as the most representative sampling of European paintings in the world. It has the most comprehensive collection of Italian Renaissance paintings outside Italy, with works by most of the great Florentine and Venetian masters of that period. There are also impressive holdings of works by various British, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Flemish painters from the 15th to the 19th century.
May 1610. Caravaggio is in Naples working on the last picture he'd ever paint. Two months later, he died in mysterious circumstances. But it was during his final tumultuous years that Caravaggio made some of his most striking works. Few paintings are better placed to tell the story of Caravaggio’s final years than his last-known work, 'The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula' (1610, Gallerie d’Italia, Naples). The painting is coming to London for the first time in 20 years.