NATIONAL GALLERY. The credit of founding a National Gallery of paintings ia due to the government of Lord Liverpool. Often as the importance of such a gallery had Isseen urged, it was nut till 1823 that the intention was seriously entertained by the govern.
ment, The subject was in that year first formally brought before parliament by the Hon. George Agar Ellis, afterwards Lord Dover, but the merit of the suggestion is ascribed to the king, George IV. It was announced that Sir George Beaumont, one of the most influential art patrons of the day, was willing to present the more valuable portion of his own collection to the nation as soon as it should be decided to commence the formation of a national gallery ; that a favourable oppor tunity offered for the purchasing another choice collection; and that the two would together form an excellent nucleus for a great public gallery. Parliament approving, Mr. Angerstein's collection was pur chased for 57,000/., and the purchase, with the addition of 3,000/. for the expenses of the establishment, was sanctioned by the usual vote in April 1824.
By a Treasury Minute of the following July, a committee of six trustees was appointed the superintending body over the gallery ; the active management being intrusted to a keeper, under whom was an assistant keeper and secretary ; and this, with slight modification, con tinned to be the arrangement until the reconstitution of the gallery in 1855.
The Angerstein collection was opened to public inspection at Mr. Angerstein 's house in Pall Mall on the 10th of May, 1824. Sir George Ileatimonea pictures were not added till somewhat more than a year later. The Angerstein collection consisted of 38 pictures, of which 29 were by the old masters, and 9 by British painters. The purchase was in every respect an admirable one. Most of the pictures were of a high class, unquestionably authentic, and of a kind to secure the public interest and admiration. At the head of them was the masterpiece of Sebastian del Piombo, one of the pictures placed by common consent among the very finest works of the best age of painting; and one in which is recognised a combination of the art of the painter whose name it bears, and of the greater hand of Michelangelo. By Sebastian's rival, Raffaelle, there was the noble portrait of Julius II. Of Titian, Correggio, and the Carracci, there were also examples, though of inferior value. The painters of the Low Countries were well represented by the Rape of the Sabine Women,' by Rubens; by Rembrandt's Woman taken in Adultery,' and Adoration of the Shepherds ; ' and by Van dyck's • St. Ambrose and the Emperor Theodosius ; ' while of the Italo French school there were a very characteristic ' Bacchanalian Scene,' by Nicolas Poussin ; a couple of landscapes by Gaspar Poussin ; and no lees than four landscapes by the prince of landscape-painters, Claude Lorraine, two of them being of large size and great excellence. The nine English pictures consisted of Hogarth's inimitable portrait of him self. and his admirable series entitled* Marriage is Mode ; ' Reynolds's masculine portrait of Lord Heathficld, the Defender of Gibraltar ; and Wilkie's brilliant Village Festival.' The gift of Sir George Beaumont was a worthy pendant to the Angerstein purchase. It con sisted of sixteen pictures, of cabinet size, but for the most part of excellent quality. Himself a zealous (amateur, landscape painter. it
was, as might be expected, in landscape that the Beaumont collection was richest, there being in it four small landscapes by Claude, one at least of surpassing beauty ; others by N. Poussin ; by Both (a capital example of his manner); by Rubens (the famous Balbi landscape, and, unlike most of Sir George Beaumont's pictures, of large size); by Canaletto ; and by our own Wilson—the Niobe,' and the Villa of Mweenas: Among the other works was Wilkie's Blind Fiddler.' About the same time the British Institution presented to the nation the St. Nicholas,' of Paolo Veronese ; the ' Vision of St. Jerome,' by Parmigiano ; and West's Healing the Sick.' Mr. Zachary added a Spanish Boy,' by Murillo; and the Rev. W. Long the Banished Lord' of Sir Joshua Reynolds ; whilst the government purchased for 3,8001., a Holy Family,' by Correggio; and for 9,000/., a Bacchanalian Dance,' by N. Poussin ; Christ appearing to Peter,' by Annibale Carracci ; and Titian's fine joyous Bacchus and Ariadne.' Thus, then, the National Gallery was fairly launched. Its progress. however, was for a time very slow. Had it not been for bequests and presentations, it would not, indeed, have made any progress at all, no picture of any kind having been purchased between 1826 and 1834, when the Marquis of Londsmderry's two superb Correggios (the Ecce Homo,' and Mercury instructing Cupid,') were bought for 11,5001. Before this, however, three or four• valuable English pictures had been presented to the gallery (including the Holy Family,' of Reynolds, and the Market Cart,' of Gainsborough, the gift of the British Insti tution). Another fine work was Rubens' splendid Peace and War,' the gift of the Marquis of Stafford. But the most important addition was the noble bequest of the Rev. W. Holwell Carr in 1831, of no less than 35 pictures, all but one by the old masters, some of them being of a high class. For the next ten or twelve years bequests fell in rather rapidly. perhaps owing somewhat to the interest aroused by the building of the new National Gallery, which was commenced in 1832, and opened to the public in 1838. In 1837 the collection received an augmentation of 17 pictures. bequeathed by Lieut.-Colonel 011ney, mostly of small size, but of a class attractive to ordinary visitors ; in 1838 it received 15 pictures, chiefly of the Dutch and Flemish schools, left by Lord Farnborough ; and in 1846, 14 left by Mr. R. Simmons. The chief subsequent bequests, besides the two landscapes by Turner, left on condition that they should be placed in juxtaposition with two of the finest Clandes in the gallery, and the magnificent series of pictures, drawings, and sketches, which the great painter desired should form a separate collection, have been eight pictures bequeathed by Lord Colborne in 1854 ; three (a Giorgione, a Titian, and a Guido) bequeathed by the poet Rogers in 1857 ; and nineteen modern pictures bequeathed by Mr. Jacob Bell. The presentations during the same period have been chiefly of single pictures, and few of them have been of any remarkable value, with the exception of the collection of one hundred and fifty-seven pictures by English painters, the munificent gift of Mr. Robert Vernon.