London’s National Gallery is loaning its masterpieces to 12 museums and galleries across the UK as part of its bicentenary celebrations in 2024.
For the project, dubbed ‘National Treasures’, the National Gallery has joined forces with institutions such as Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery, and the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.
All 12 paintings will go on view on 10 May 2024, the National Gallery’s 200th birthday. They will be loaned for between two and four months, with the final displays ending on 10 September 2024.
During this time, more than half the UK population will be within an hour’s journey of one of the gallery’s masterpieces.
The venues and the paintings they are receiving are as follows:
- Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The Wilton Diptych (1395‒9)
- Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, Self Portrait at the Age of 34 (1640), Rembrandt
- Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, The Hay Wain (1821), Constable
- The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Venus and Mars (1485), Botticelli
- Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1615‒17), Artemisia
- Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, The Fighting Temeraire (1839), Turner
- Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, The Umbrellas (1881‒6), Renoir
- The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, The Stonemason’s Yard (1725), Canaletto
- Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, A Young Woman standing at a Virginal (1670‒2), Vermeer
- Ulster Museum, Belfast, The Supper at Emmaus (1601), Caravaggio
- Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, The Rokeby Venus (1647‒51), Velázquez
- York Art Gallery, The Water-Lily Pond (1899), Monet
National Gallery’s bicentenary celebrations
Two works – The Wilton Diptych and Venus and Mars – will be leaving the National Gallery’s collection for the first time since they were acquired in 1929 and 1874 respectively.
“In our bicentenary year, we want to reaffirm our role as the nation’s gallery,” said Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery.
“Our collection belongs to the UK public and we’re very pleased to work with such an exciting range of partner venues to help realise this.”
The National Gallery’s bicentenary celebrations will conclude in May 2025 with the opening of the new Sainsbury Wing in Trafalgar Square.
Images: National Gallery
