London’s National Gallery, which celebrates its 200th birthday this spring, boasts one of the world’s most magnificent art collections, its 2,600 works (and counting) treasured by Britons, and its iconic Trafalgar Square home a magnet for tourists. But this giant of galleries, in fact, started very small.
Its story began on 23 February 1824, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer took to his feet in the House of Commons to confirm how he had decided to spend what he called a ‘Godsend’ – a boost to the British coffers courtesy of the partial repayment of a multi-million-pound loan. The loan had been all but written off in the 25 years since it had been made to the Austrian government at the height of the French revolutionary wars. £60,000 of the unexpected windfall, he proposed, be allocated
