National Gallery

The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square holds one of the finest collections of European painting in the world, more than two thousand three hundred pictures running from the thirteenth century to the early twentieth. It was founded in 1824 when the British government bought thirty eight paintings from the banker John Julius Angerstein, and unlike most great European galleries it did not grow out of a royal collection. It was built for the public from the start, and it is still free to enter.

The collection is arranged chronologically. The Sainsbury Wing, reopened in 2025 after a major refurbishment, houses the earliest paintings, from Giotto and the Italian altarpieces through Van Eyck, Botticelli, Piero della Francesca and Leonardo. The main building continues with the sixteenth century in the West Wing, the seventeenth century in the North Wing with Rembrandt, Rubens, Velazquez and Caravaggio, and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the East Wing, where Turner, Constable, the Impressionists and Van Gogh draw the biggest crowds.

A first visit works best as a walk through time. Start in the Sainsbury Wing and move eastward, or pick a dozen famous works and let the building lead you between them. The rooms are grand but rarely overwhelming, and the free entry means you can come back for an hour at a time rather than trying to see everything at once.