WILLIAM BARCHAM

The National Gallery in London was officially founded in the early nineteenth century and its works include many of the masterpieces of Renaissance art as well as the largest collection of Velazquez outside of Spain. The collections were moved to the present seat of Trafalgar Square in 1838 and donations continued at an impressive rate, filling out the collection with early Italian and Italian Renaissance paintings as well as Venetian landscapes -- perhaps better represented in London that in any other museum. The museum's collection includes early Flemish paintings, golden background Florentine and Sienese paintings, Italian Renaissance masterpieces from Masaccio to Botticelli and Raphael, from Giovanni Bellini to Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, the Italian Seicento at its height, the vivid colors of Tiepolo and Guardi and Canaletto's captivating views, the greatest French painters from Poussin to Le Lorraine, and a spectacular series by Holbein the Younger. These are the pivot points around which rotates the entire world of European painting from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. Added to this extraordinary heritage are masterpieces of French Impressionism and the English School. Paintings in the National Gallery, London is lavishly illustrated with 600 color plates and will be an invaluable resource for scholars and art lovers alike.