Collecting Histories: Tales from the National Gallery

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery on the origins of its collection.

To mark the start of the weekend of celebrations marking 200 years since the foundation of the National Gallery Susanna Avery-Quash, the lead curator, lead us through the career of the first director of the gallery Sir Charles Eastlake looking at how he added to the collection and then organised and collated it.

Avery-Quash drew not only on the main collection of the gallery but also its contextual collection of objects which relate to the main collection and the history of the gallery. She showed us some fascinating, newly acquired archive material relating to Eastlake and his wife Lady Eastlake.

A fitting start to marking this important anniversary.

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