London's Art Collections: The National Gallery in 1900

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Arthur H. Beavan continued his survey of London's art galleries in Imperial London, first published in 1901, with this look at the National Gallery:

To begin with the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, a building that has been made more fun of, especially by Punch, than any other in London.

It has a fine frontage of some 500 feet, with porticoed columns taken from Carlton House; but its general design by W. Watkins, R.A. and architect (1832-38), is mean and ugly.

A wing was added in 1876, from a plan by E. M. Barry, R.A., and in 1885-87, the buildings were enlarged by the addition of a grand staircase which terminates in three vestibules, the central one opening into new rooms that communicate with Mr. Barry's wing.

On the ground floor are two good-sized repairing-rooms, store-rooms, and offices.

It originated with the acquisition of the Angerstein collection of pictures by Lord Liverpool's Government for £60,000, in 1824, since which date various bequests of paintings - the most important being those of Mr. Robert Vernon and J. M. Turner, R. A. - and purchases by the State, brought the collection by 1900 to number about 1500 pictures, of which nearly 700 were of the Continental school.

Our National Gallery contains some of the best work of Englishmen: - Gainsborough, Reynolds, Romney, Etty, Wilkie, Constable, Herring, Landseer, etc.; while the great foreign masters, Raphael, Van Dyck, Holbein, Rembrandt, Cuyp, Rubens, Teniers, Murillo, Correggio, etc., are well represented.

The galleries are comfortable, warm, and well-lighted, and the new rooms were architecturally handsome.

Some of the paintings had the subject and the name of the artist attached to them; but to those persons who desired to analyze the collection, there was a catalogue edited by Sir Edward Poynter, P.R.A., which gave a process reproduction of every single picture having a place in the Gallery in 1900.

The notices of the pictures were abridged from the official catalogue, and were supplemented with notes furnished by Sir Edward Poynter himself, in which he quoted and discussed attributions by foreign critics differing from those at present officially accepted at the Gallery.

Next: London's art collections in 1900: National Portrait Gallery