Page 112 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - London

110  L ONDON AREA B Y AREA

Exploring the National Gallery

The National Gallery has over 2,300 paintings, most kept on
permanent display. The collection comprises paintings in
the Western European tradition from late-medieval times to the
early 20th century by artists including Botticelli, Leonardo,
Titian, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Monet and Van Gogh. The bulk
of the British collections are in Tate Britain (see pp86–9), while
Tate Modern specializes in international modern art (pp182–5).

Important Netherlandish
Early Renaissance pictures, including some by The Adoration of the Kings (1564) by
(1250–1500): Italian and Rogier van der Weyden and his Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Northern European Painting
followers, are also here, in the
Three lustrous panels from Sainsbury Wing. the Vatican in Rome. These
the Maestà, Duccio’s great and other well­known names of
altarpiece in Siena cathedral, the High (or Late) Renaissance
are among the earliest paintings are extremely well represented.
here. Other Italian works of Exquisite Raphaels include the
the period include his out­ famous Madonna of the Pinks,
standing Madonna. only identified in the 1990s
The fine Wilton Diptych and bought by the gallery for
portraying England’s Richard II £22 million in 2004. Look out
is probably by a French artist. for Leonardo da Vinci’s charcoal
It displays the lyrical elegance cartoon of the Virgin and Child,
of the International Gothic style and his second version of the
that swept Europe. Virgin of the Rocks. There are
Italian masters of this style also tender and amusing works
include Pisanello and Gentile by Piero di Cosimo, and several
da Fabriano, whose Madonna Titians, including Bacchus and
often hangs beside another, by Ariadne – which the public
Masaccio – both date from the found too bright and garish
1420s. Also shown are works St Jerome in his Study by Antonello da when it was first cleaned by
by Masaccio’s pupil, Fra Filippo Messina (c.1475) the gallery in the 1840s.
Lippi, as well as Botticelli and The Netherlandish and
Uccello. Umbrian paintings High Renaissance German collections are weaker.
include Piero della Francesca’s Even so, they include The
Nativity and Baptism, and there (1500–1600): Italian, Ambassadors, a fine double
Netherlandish and
is an excellent collection of portrait by Holbein; and
Mantegna, Bellini and other German Painting Altdorfer’s superb Christ Taking
works from the Venetian and Sebastiano del Piombo’s The Leave of his Mother, bought by
Ferrarese schools. Antonello da Raising of Lazarus was painted, the gallery in 1980. There is
Messina’s St Jerome in his Study with Michelangelo’s assistance, also a Hieronymus Bosch of
has been mistaken for a Van to rival Raphael’s great Christ Mocked (sometimes
Eyck; it is not hard to see why, Transfiguration, which hangs in known as The Crowning with
when you compare it with Van Thorns), and an excellent
Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait. Bruegel, The Adoration
of the Kings.

The Annunciation (early 1450s) by Fra Filippo Lippi

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