Top 100 - National Gallery in London: masterpieces
The 100 most famous paintings from the National Gallery in London
From Van Eyck and Botticelli to Turner, Monet and Van Gogh: one hundred paintings to span seven centuries of European art in Trafalgar Square
Founded in 1824 from thirty-eight paintings, the National Gallery today brings together one of the great public histories of Western painting. Drawings, prints, sculptures and works belonging to other British museums have been excluded.
Trafalgar Square, seven centuries of painting
One hundred paintings to understand the National Gallery
The museum is not just about a series of stars. Its strength lies in the neighborhoods: Van Eyck can be compared to Holbein, Bellini to Titian, Rubens to Van Dyck, Constable to Turner, then Monet to Van Gogh. Each connection shows that a pictorial problem has several answers.
The National Gallery brings together images that have become universal and works that benefit from being viewed for longer. Van Eyck's mirror, Turner's steam and Van Gogh's yellows do not tell the same story, but they all speak directly to the eye.Switch to images
Classification in images
Arnolfini, The Ambassadors, The Sunflowers, The Bold, Vermeer, Titian and the images that immediately define the museum.
#1
The Arnolfini Spouses
The convex mirror, the painted signature and the precision of the fabrics make this Bruges interior a visual enigma. Van Eyck transforms each object into a clue without reducing the torque to a single interpretation.
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#2
The Ambassadors
The luxury of instruments, books and fabrics celebrates diplomatic knowledge, while the anamorphosis of the skull crosses the stage like a brutal reminder of death. Mastery of the world thus remains suspended on human fragility.
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#3
Sunflowers
Van Gogh modulates almost the entire canvas in a range of yellows, from dry ocher to luminous lemon. Faded, erect or drooping flowers make up less of a decorative bouquet than a cycle of vitality and exhaustion.
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#4
The Last Journey of the Bold
The old warship, pale as an apparition, is towed towards its destruction by a small dark steamboat. Turner opposes heroic memory and industrial modernity in a sunset that has become a national elegy.
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#5
Venus and Mars
Venus remains awake facing Mars disarmed by sleep, while satyrs play with its armor. The supple line, the rhythm of the bodies and the humor of the details give the triumph of love a very Florentine elegance.
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#6
The Virgin of the Rocks
In a humid and fantastic cave, the gestures connect the Virgin, the Child, Saint John and the angel in a silent circle. The sfumato dissolves the contours and makes light an almost spiritual material.
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#7
Venus in her mirror
The body seen from behind unfolds in a long curve, but the mirror blurs rather than confirms the face of Venus. Between sensual proximity and uncertain reflection, Velazquez makes the gaze the real subject.
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#8
The Hay Cart
The cart stopped in the water, Willy Lott's house and the changing clouds give the landscape a lived truth. Constable elevates a familiar corner of Suffolk to the dignity of a great natural history painting.
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#9
A swim in Asnières
The motionless figures on the banks of the Seine contrast with the smoke of the factories and the sails of the distance. Seurat constructs warmth, social silence and depth through large, carefully ordered colored areas.
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#10
Bacchus and Ariadne
Bacchus jumps from his chariot at the precise moment he discovers Ariadne abandoned. The diagonal of bodies, the intense azure and the promised constellation transform the romantic encounter into an explosion of movement and color.
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#11
Dinner at Emmaus
The disciples recognize Christ in a flash of gestures: arms open, chair pushed back, hand suspended above the table. Chiaroscuro and objects thrown towards us abolish the distance from the miracle.
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#12
Samson and Delilah
The candlelight glides over Samson's sleeping skin as scissors approach his hair. Rubens concentrates desire, betrayal and impending violence in a night theater of exceptional density.
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#13
Whistlejacket
Without a rider, landscape or attribute, the thoroughbred rears up in front of an almost empty background. Stubbs combines careful anatomical knowledge with a sovereign monumentality that transforms the animal portrait into an apparition.
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#14
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey
Blindfolded, Jane searches for the block with her hand while a man guides her. The straw, the white satin and the upset faces make up a historical drama designed for the immediate emotion of the audience.
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#15
Rain, Steam and Speed
The locomotive emerges through rain, smoke and light onto the Maidenhead Bridge. Turner doesn't just describe a machine: he paints the modern feeling of speed, when landscape and atmosphere seem to dissolve under the momentum.
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#16
The Water Lilies Basin, green harmony
The Japanese bridge closes the space like an arch while foliage and reflections invade the surface. Monet transforms his garden in Giverny into a laboratory where water, vegetation and light become almost inseparable.
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#17
Madame Moitessier
The frontal pose, floral dress and sumptuous decor build a presence of calm authority. In the mirror, the profile repeats the model and adds an almost timeless depth to this worldly portrait.
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#18
Portrait of Pope Julius II
The pope is not presented as an official icon, but seated, thoughtful, with a beard marking a period of mourning. Raphael combines the brilliance of red velvet with a striking meditation on age and power.
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#19
Allegory of the triumph of Venus
Venus and Cupid kiss at the center of a network of seductive and disturbing figures. The icy finish, impossible bodies and contradictory symbols make pleasure a moral enigma without a comfortable solution.
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#20
Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan
The doge stands out against a luminous blue, dressed in the embroidered damask of his charge. Bellini combines precision of materials, geometric stability and psychological presence to renew the official Venetian portrait.
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#21
The Andrews Brides
The couple poses at the edge of their land, as carefully described as the fabrics and faces. The space left on the dress, probably destined to remain unfinished, disturbs the balance between portrait, property and landscape.
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#22
A lady standing at the virginal
In a room ordered by light, the musician interrupts her playing and meets our gaze. The hanging paintings, the marble of the floor and the instrument combine musical harmony, desire and domestic measure.
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#23
Lady seated at the virginal
The young woman turns around from her instrument with an availability that is difficult to interpret. Vermeer brings together the blue of satin, the cold light and the courtesan painting to establish a deliberately ambiguous intimacy.
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#24
Self-portrait at age 34
Leaning on the parapet and dressed magnificently, Rembrandt measures himself against Italian Renaissance portraits. The confident pose asserts its status, while the face maintains a deeply human mobility and vulnerability.
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#25
Equestrian portrait of Charles I
The king dominates the path without heavy armor or military agitation. Van Dyck uses the low horizon, the large oak and the elegance of the mount to create a natural sovereignty, as seductive as it is carefully staged.
View product →Piero, Uccello, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, Bellini and Holbein construct space, portraiture and modern narrative.
#26
The Baptism of Christ
Christ stands in almost mineral clarity, exactly under the dove, while the water of the Jordan stands still at his feet. Perspective, geometry and light give the sacrament a silent gravity.
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#27
The Battle of San Romano
Broken spears, horses and armor are ordered like the elements of a demonstration of perspective. Uccello transforms the military melee into a heraldic spectacle, where rational space rivals the taste for precious decor.
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#28
The Entombment
The body of Christ is lifted in an upward movement which mobilizes the whole group. The incompleteness reveals the preparation and the repetitions, making particularly sensitive the thoughts of the young Michelangelo constructing the scene.
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#29
The Manchester Madonna
The Virgin interrupts her reading while the Child designates the text announcing her destiny. Completed figures and still open areas coexist, revealing how Michelangelo gave birth to monumentality even before definitive color.
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#30
The mystical Nativity
Angels and men kiss under a celestial circle, while small demons disappear into the cracks of the ground. Botticelli mixes apocalyptic hope, personal fervor and decorative rhythm in an unparalleled vision.
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#31
The Adoration of the Magi
The Holy Family appears almost compressed by a host of faces, spears and costumes. Bruegel diverts traditional pomp to observe reactions, curiosity and indifference at the very heart of Epiphany.
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#32
The Agony in the Garden
Christ prays on a rock carved like architecture, while the apostles sleep and the soldiers approach. The stony landscape, birds and fantasy city transform the story into meditation on waiting.
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#33
Agony in the Garden of Olives
A dawn light envelops the kneeling Christ, the sleeping disciples and the distant procession. Bellini softens the structure inherited from Mantegna and makes the landscape the very place of spiritual emotion.
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#34
The Prairie Madonna
The Virgin holds the sleeping Child in a calm landscape, but her pose already announces the Pietà. The meticulous countryside and transparent light combine maternal tenderness, prophecy of sacrifice and observation of the world.
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#35
The Crucifixion World
Christ seems to float between the sun and the moon, surrounded by angels who collect his blood. The balance of the figures, the clarity of the landscape and the still Umbrian color announce Raphael's classic mastery.
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#36
Saint Catherine of Alexandria
The saint turns in a spiral movement, her hand placed on the wheel of her torture. The landscape and the draperies accompany this twist which unites bodily grace and mystical elevation.
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#37
The Ansidei Madonna
Under a rigorously constructed canopy, the Virgin sits between Saint John the Baptist and Saint Nicholas. The symmetry, clear light and legible attributes give the altarpiece a calm majesty rather than an emphatic spectacle.
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#38
Portrait of a man, known as The Man in the Red Turban
The direct gaze and the virtuoso-knotted turban give the model a striking presence. The motto inscribed on the frame invites us to consider this small panel as a demonstration of precision and perhaps as a self-portrait.
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#39
Léal Souvenir
The face emerges behind a fictional parapet bearing an inscription as if engraved in stone. Van Eyck confronts living presence, memory and material illusion in one of the most singular portraits of the 15th century.
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#40
Christina of Denmark
The young widow stands in black in front of a blue background, observed as the possible wife of Henry VIII. The sobriety of the device leaves plenty of room for his intelligence, his reserve and the measured brilliance of his hands.
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#41
A lady with a squirrel and a starling
The tamed squirrel, the starling and the details of the costume seem to identify Anne Lovell through a play of family emblems. Holbein unites tenderness, accuracy and social construction in a portrait of remarkable clarity.
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#42
Erasmus
The scholar writes in a tight interior, surrounded by books but without excessive staging. Holbein transforms the concentration of the hand, the profile and the gaze into a lasting image of European humanism.
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#43
Saint Jerome in the desert
The penitent saint is tiny among rocks, trees and waters. Dürer makes the landscape a space of active solitude, where every natural detail amplifies meditation rather than distracts it.
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#44
The Crowning with Thorns
Four executioners surround Christ in an oppressive framing, their gestures and looks transforming violence into psychological proximity. The restraint of the central face makes the surrounding hostility even more difficult to sustain.
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#45
The Nativity
The Virgin adores the Child placed on the ground while angels sing without visible instruments. The worn surfaces do not erase the strange clarity of this scene where Tuscan landscape and revelation coexist.
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#46
Portrait of a young man
The model stands out clearly against a light background, her slightly asymmetrical face escaping perfect idealization. Botticelli makes line and silence the instruments of a presence that is both elegant and interior.
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#47
The Adoration of the Magi
The ancient ruin welcomes a crowd of princes, courtiers and spectators around the Holy Family. Botticelli mixes devotion and collective portrait, giving each attitude a readable place in the ceremonial.
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#48
Apollo and Daphne
By the time Apollo reaches Daphne, his arms are already changing into laurel branches. The small format, the precision of the landscape and the momentum of the figures condense the entire metamorphosis into a suspended moment.
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#49
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian
The archers are distributed around the saint according to an almost experimental symmetry. Their varied poses study the body in action, while the Florentine space at the back gives the violence a disturbing clarity.
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#50
The Death of Procris
A satyr leans over Procris' injured body, observed by a motionless dog. The misty landscape and silent tenderness of the scene transform the mythological story into a mysterious elegy.
View product →Rubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Velazquez, Poussin, Claude and the masters of landscape give the collection its European depth.
#51
The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine
The figures stretch and approach each other in a space more sensual than rational. The gesture of the ring, the elegant hands and the pearly light make the sacrament an intensely refined mannerist vision.
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#52
The Introduction of the Cult of Cybele to Rome
Painted in imitation of an ancient relief, the procession advances in a severe range of grays and ochres. Mantegna transforms Roman scholarship into a living frieze where history, sculpture and painting merge.
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#53
The Judgment of Paris
The three goddesses present themselves in Paris under the gaze of Mercury, while the sky already announces the Trojan War. Rubens combines variety of skin tones, vibrant landscape and tragic consequences of desire.
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#54
The Straw Hat
The large hat barely protects the face of a young woman whose light animates the eyes and skin. Rubens transforms a simple pose into a display of color, air and affection.
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#55
Minerva protecting the Peace of Mars
Peace feeds its children while Minerva pushes back Mars and the Fury. Fruits, satyrs, flesh and fabrics make up a diplomatic abundance offered to Charles I as a plea for concord.
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#56
View of Het Steen in the early morning
From his domain, Rubens deploys fields, paths, herds and morning light in a vast panoramic movement. The landscape here becomes a personal experience, far from court orders and great heroic cycles.
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#57
The Feast of Balthazar
The luminous writing appears on the wall and causes the banquet to slide into panic. The hands, the looks, the overturned vases and the shiny fabrics orchestrate a revelation as spectacular as it is morally implacable.
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#58
The Adulterous Woman
The little figure of the woman advances into the dark immensity of the Temple, facing the enlightened Christ. Rembrandt contrasts architectural pomp with a scene of judgment where compassion is played out almost in a low voice.
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#59
Saskia in Flora
Saskia appears in the guise of Flora, crowned with flowers and dressed in sumptuous fabrics. The tenderness of the face and the richness of the material bring together intimate portraits, historical costumes and mythology.
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#60
Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels
Hendrickje turns slightly towards us, shaped by a warm light and a free touch. The jewelry, clothing and background remain subordinate to a calm presence, constructed without worldly idealization.
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#61
Boy bitten by a lizard
The young man suddenly withdraws, fingers clenched and mouth open, after the bite hidden among the fruits. Caravaggio makes a tiny accident a dazzling study of pain, surprise and sensuality.
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#62
Salome with the head of Saint John the Baptist
The executioner places his head on a tray while Salomé looks away slightly. The tight composition and low light refuse the easy spectacle to establish an almost silent gravity.
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#63
Christ in the house of Martha and Mary
A young servant occupies the foreground, between mortar, garlic, eggs and fish, while the biblical scene appears at the back. Velazquez connects domestic work, daily irritation and spiritual lesson without resolving their tension.
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#64
Philip IV of Spain
The king dressed in brown and silver stands with a remarkable economy of attributes. The firm silhouette, the hand placed on the table and the vibrant material give the protocol an immediately human presence.
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#65
Self-portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Artemisia represents herself holding the palm and the broken wheel of martyrdom. The proximity of the face, the energetic hand and the firm light unite artist's affirmation, devotion and experience of resistance.
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#66
Self-portrait
The painter appears to pass through a trompe-l'oeil stone frame, his hand resting on its edge. Palette, drawing and compass claim his craft, while direct expression gives the monument a familiar warmth.
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#67
Saint Margaret
Dressed like an elegant shepherdess, the saint advances with her staff and her dragon. Zurbaran makes the texture of the fabrics, the stability of the pose and the sculptural light the signs of a concrete faith.
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#68
Golden Calf Worship
The dance is organized in a frieze in front of the brilliant idol, while Moses appears in the distance with the Tables of the Law. Poussin constructs moral disorder through a composition of almost choreographic rigor.
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#69
The Triumph of Pan
Nymphs, satyrs and dancers celebrate the god around a term covered in garlands. Collective movement, color rhythms and ancient quotations transform the bacchanal into skillfully ordered poetry.
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#70
Port with the embarkation of Saint Ursula
The rising sun crosses the sails, palaces and waters of the port where Saint Ursula is preparing to leave. Claude makes the story a pretext to measure space through light and atmosphere.
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#71
The Boarding of the Queen of Sheba
Between two monumental architectures, the queen advances towards the ship which will take her to Solomon. The golden backlight gives the ideal port an almost musical depth and solemnity.
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#72
Flowers in a vase with shells and insects
Tulips, roses, shells, fruits and insects are arranged with cabinet of curiosities precision. The beauty of the bouquet is accompanied by signs of fragility, making abundance a meditation on time.
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#73
Young man holding a skull
The young man turns quickly, a skull placed in his open hand. The quick touch and the mobile expression renew vanity: the moral lesson keeps the speed of a real encounter.
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#74
Middelharnis Alley
The central road runs between the severely pruned trees to the distant village. The bold perspective, immense sky and rural details give an ordinary landscape an almost abstract power.
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#75
The Grand Dordrecht
A golden light envelops boats, horsemen and herds on the banks of the Meuse. Cuyp combines topographical observation and pastoral calm, giving the Dutch sky a scale that would profoundly influence British painters.
View product →Gainsborough, Hogarth, Turner, Constable, Manet, Monet, Degas, Cézanne and Van Gogh lead the route to the threshold of the 20th century.
#76
A vast landscape with ruins
The gaze crosses rugged terrain to ruins lost under the clouds. Ruisdael combines natural details, atmospheric depth and traces of time to give the landscape historical gravity.
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#77
Mr. and Mrs. William Hallett, known as The Morning Walk
The young couple advances with their dog in a nature as elegant as their clothes. The light touches of foliage and fabrics transform the wedding portrait into continuous movement.
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#78
Fashionable marriage: The Marriage Contract
Two families negotiate the union of their children, who already ignore each other on the other end of the room. Family trees, bills, dogs and attitudes accurately tell of an alliance based on money and rank.
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#79
Madame de Pompadour at her embroidery craft
Surrounded by books, music, prints and an embroidery loom, the marquise appears as a cultivated protector of the arts. The luxury of surfaces serves as a political image of intelligence and taste.
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#80
Self-portrait with straw hat
The painter appears in the open air, palette and brushes in hand, under a large hat decorated with flowers. She responds to Rubens' Straw Hat while confidently asserting her own professional identity.
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#81
Portrait of the Duke of Wellington
Goya gradually adds decorations and medals to the portrait of the victorious general. However, the tired and tense face resists the triumphant image, revealing the human cost of command.
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#82
Odysseus mocking Polyphemus
Ulysses' ship leaves the island while the Cyclops merges with the mountain and the clouds. The triumphant light is crossed by danger, making the landscape as active a force as the hero.
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#83
The Calais Pier
Waves, wind and battered boats fill the web with almost physical instability. Turner combines travel observation, passenger humor and the power of the sea in a restless landscape.
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#84
Dido building Carthage
The ancient city rises around a port bathed in light, while Dido appears in the foreground. Turner dialogues with Claude Lorrain to make imperial history an architecture of air, water and sun.
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#85
The Horse Market
Powerful horses rotate in a collective movement led by merchants. Bonheur combines anatomical study, monumental energy and social observation to conquer a genre then largely dominated by men.
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#86
Winter landscape with church
A cripple abandons his crutches in front of a crucifix, while a cathedral appears in the mist beyond the fir trees. Friedrich transforms the winter landscape into a passage from earthly suffering to hope.
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#87
The Stonemason's Court
Far from the Grand Canal ceremonies, a work yard opens onto houses, linen and blocks of stone. The clear light transforms Venetian daily life into an astonishingly modern construction.
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#88
Music at the Tuileries
Artists, writers and elegant people crowd the garden without a single narrative center. The dark touches, the barely indicated faces and the tight framing make the Parisian crowd a manifesto of modern life.
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#89
The Execution of Emperor Maximilian
The platoon fires at point blank range in front of an almost bare wall, while an officer calmly prepares his weapon. Manet refuses traditional pathos and gives political violence a chilling administrative coldness.
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#90
Miss La La at the Fernando circus
Suspended by the teeth above the track, the acrobat is seen from a dizzying angle. Degas contrasts the extreme effort of the body with the clear geometry of the architecture and the carefully tuned spectacle.
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#91
Umbrellas
The crowd in the rain brings together two moments from Renoir's career: impressionist flexibility on the right, firmer drawing on the left. This visible cover transforms an urban scene into a document on the evolution of his gaze.
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#92
Saint-lazare Station
Blue and white steam invades the glass roof, fragments the locomotives and colors the iron architecture. Monet treats the modern station like an atmospheric cathedral where the light changes faster than travelers.
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#93
A wheat field with cypresses
Cypresses, olive trees, wheat and clouds respond to each other in an undulating movement that crosses the entire canvas. Van Gogh transforms the Provençal landscape into a living rhythm without losing the solidity of his plans.
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#94
Vincent's Chair with his pipe
A simple chair, a pipe and a tile floor become signs of an absent presence. The bold colors and slightly unstable perspective give this everyday object the density of an indirect self-portrait.
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#95
The Great Bathers
The bodies integrate with the trees and the sky in a triangular architecture which refuses the anecdote. Cézanne takes up the great classic nude to construct a world of interdependent volumes, rhythms and colors.
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#96
Boulevard Montmartre, night effect
From his window, Pissarro observes cabs, lights and crowds like an urban current. The colorful touches dissolve the details without losing the structure of the boulevard, its depth or its incessant activity.
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#97
Summer day
Two women sitting in a boat occupy a cut foreground, facing the animated reflections of the Bois de Boulogne. Morisot makes their divergent gazes and his free touch a subtle study of modern intimacy.
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#98
Young Spartans in training
Two groups of adolescents challenge each other in an ancient landscape, under the gaze of adults. Degas combines history, contemporary observation and ambiguous attitudes to produce an antiquity that is deliberately unacademic.
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#99
Bathers at Grenouillère
Boats, pontoon and walkers fragment in the rapid reflections of the Seine. Monet experiments with a touch that simultaneously captures modern leisure, water mobility and changing light.
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#100
The Thames and Parliament
Parliament is reduced to a purple silhouette behind the mist and reflections of the river. Monet dissolves the political monument in an atmosphere where color, time and weather become the main subject.
View product →What the ranking reveals
One hundred paintings, three ways to cross the museum
Fame is not enough to explain the strength of the National Gallery. Above all, the museum allows us to compare the solutions invented by painters to convey a presence, construct a story and transform light into space.
Detail changes the whole
Mirror, skull, instrument, flower or reflection are never simple accessories: they reorient the complete reading of the painting.
Light has a story
From Piero's clarity to Monet's fog, it moves from a principle of order to a mobile experience of time.
The collection connects schools
Italy, Flanders, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Great Britain respond to each other instead of remaining locked in watertight chapters.
Collection timeline
Five dates to understand the National Gallery
Parliament buys the thirty-eight paintings by John Julius Angerstein; the National Gallery opens to the public in its Pall Mall home.
The museum is located in the building designed by William Wilkins, in the heart of a space accessible to very different audiences.
The Barry Wing responds to the rapid enrichment of the fund and the need to introduce more European schools.
The new wing notably houses paintings from the ancient Renaissance in rooms designed for their scale and light.
The NG200 program renews spaces and reminds us that a historical collection continues to modify the way it welcomes views.
The National Gallery in depth
How to watch the hundred masterpieces of the National Gallery?
The museum is not just about a series of stars. Its strength lies in the neighborhoods: Van Eyck can be compared to Holbein, Bellini to Titian, Rubens to Van Dyck, Constable to Turner, then Monet to Van Gogh. Each connection shows that a pictorial problem has several answers.
The portrait runs through the entire ranking. Bellini's doge asserts a function, Christine of Denmark protects her reserve, Rembrandt measures her own status and Madame Moitessier transforms worldly elegance into architecture. Faces, hands and fabrics tell as much as the titles.
Religious painting remains central, but it constantly changes tone. Piero della Francesca seeks the luminous order, Mantegna hardens the landscape, Bellini softens it, Caravaggio brings the miracle closer to our table and Rembrandt lets compassion illuminate the darkness.
The British school gives the museum several of its emblems. Gainsborough combines people and property, Stubbs monumentalizes a horse without a rider, Constable paints the meteorological truth of a familiar place and Turner confronts memory, industry and light.
The 19th century finally changed the speed of the gaze. Manet tightens the crowd, Degas cuts the space, Monet transforms the vapor and reflections into material, Cézanne reconstructs the volume and Van Gogh gives objects and landscapes an interior rhythm.
Four visit keys
Look beyond the line in front of the icons
Scale, gesture, light and surface allow you to connect very different works without reducing them to a list of stars.
Measure with your body
A small Flemish portrait requires proximity; a Turner or Stubbs first organizes a physical relationship at a distance.
Follow hands and looks
Blessing, writing, pointing, playing or turning away is often enough to turn the story upside down.
Identify its function
It can reveal a miracle, shape a face, open a landscape or dissolve a city in fog.
Compare ways
Enameled finish, glaze, free touch or color division say as much as the subjects represented.
Extend the visit
Continue after the hundredth painting
The National Gallery's online collection allows you to delve deeper into each painting, its artist and its history. The store's reproductions extend the eye when the exact work is already available.
In Alpha Reproduction
01The 100 most famous paintings in the worldContinue among the masterpieces02The 100 most famous paintings in the Prado MuseumContinue among the masterpieces03The 100 essential paintings of the 16th centuryContinue among the masterpieces04The 100 most famous landscapes in paintingContinue among the masterpieces05National Gallery Collection in LondonExplore the store06Reproductions by Vincent van GoghExplore the store07Reproductions by Claude MonetExplore the storeMuseums and references
01Museum & referenceFrequently asked questions
The National Gallery without a crumpled plan
The essential answers on classification, selected works, reproductions and preparation for a visit.
Which painting should you see first at the National Gallery?
The Arnolfini Spouses are a great place to start, but The Ambassadors, The Last Journey of the Bold, The Sunflowers, Bacchus and Ariadne, and The Virgin of the Rocks offer six very different experiences from the collection.
Why are Arnolfini Spouses ranked first?
The painting brings together global fame, historical importance and visual density. Its mirror, its signature, its textures and the questions asked by the couple make it a work that can be revisited without exhausting its mystery.
Does the National Gallery preserve modern art?
The main collection extends from the 13th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Monet, Cézanne, Seurat, Van Gogh and their contemporaries mark the modern threshold; more recent British and international art falls under the Tate in particular.
Why doesn't The Mona Lisa appear?
The Mona Lisa is kept at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The National Gallery, however, has The Virgin of the Rocks, another major masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.
Can we see the hundred paintings in a single day?
It is possible to explore the rooms, but difficult to look at a hundred paintings carefully. A first visit can favor the twenty-five icons, then devote a second session to the Renaissance and a third to landscapes and the 19th century.
Does the classification only contain paintings?
Yes. The hundred entries are paintings on wood, canvas or other pictorial supports. Drawings, prints, photographs, sculptures and objects were excluded.
Are all the hundred reproductions distinct?
Yes. Each card corresponds to a different table, product sheet and image. Commercial variations, duplicate titles and repeated images are not counted as new works.
Should you check the hanging before visiting the museum?
Yes. Loans, restorations and room changes may modify the presentation. The National Gallery website indicates the most recent situation for each work.
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