Detail of Flemish, 'Cognoscenti in a Room hung with Pictures', about 1620.
London, The National Gallery.

Scholarship Programme

The Neil MacGregor Scholarships

The Neil MacGregor scholarship programme contributed to research on paintings in regional collections by offering eight scholarships for a period of three months each over two years. The scholarships ran in 2004 and 2005.

The scholarships were also intended to provide a means of encouraging art historians at the start of their careers to engage with museum work, in particular with research into paintings collections.

Scholars were allocated for research a group of around 75 paintings in regional collections which were selected in collaboration with the museums in the project.

Scholars spent their first month based at the National Gallery, where they were given an introduction to methods of physical examination, framing and photography, and also did some initial research on the paintings in the National Gallery library. They then spent six weeks carrying out research in the regions, returning to the National Gallery as neccessary. Finally, they spent two weeks in the Gallery completing and writing up the research, producing a report on what had been accomplished and information to be used in the National Inventory Project. Research material collected on individual paintings was sent to the relevant museums for their files.

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