Art for the Nation : Sir Charles Eastlake at the National Gallery

Small exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the gallery’s first director and how he built the collection.

The exhibition looked in particular at how Eastlake bought a number of pictures including the Bellini “Madonna of the Meadow” and included those pictures. It included his and his wife’s travel diaries describing meeting with sellers and how they found out about the pictures.

This was a good way of showing off what the National Gallery archive holds and how it has been used for research.

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Evening Standard


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