The National Gallery and Art Fund

Art Fund is an independent charity that secures works of art for the UK’s public collections. It has a long history of supporting acquisitions at the National Gallery.

As early as 1906, only three years after it was founded, Art Fund presented Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus to the Gallery, following a successful fundraising appeal. More recently, Art Fund pledged £1 million towards the campaign to secure Titian’s Diana and Actaeon – its largest-ever grant for a single work of art.

Altogether Art Fund has helped the National Gallery to acquire 124 works of art through gifts and grant awards. A selection of the masterpieces that have entered the collection with Art Fund’s assistance are shown below.

Selected works purchased with support from Art Fund

Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi, the most celebrated female artist of the seventeenth century, appears in the guise of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a Christian saint martyred in the early fourth century. She leans on a broken wheel studded with iron spikes, to which she was bound and tortured, and which...

Room 32

The Fortress of Königstein from the North

Bernardo Bellotto

Sharp and angular, the Saxon fortress of Königstein, about 25 miles southeast of Dresden, is silhouetted against a pale sky. The artist, Bellotto, was from Venice, and he has applied the traditions of Venetian view painting – a high level of detail, the large scale – to this northern landscape. I...

Room 40

The Wilton Diptych

English or French (?)

This small, portable diptych is one of a handful of English panel paintings to have survived from the Middle Ages. Made for Richard II, King of England from 1377 to 1399, in the last five years of his life, it combines religious and secular imagery to embody his personal conception of kingship.O...

Not on display

Saint Jerome

Albrecht Dürer

This small double-sided painting was most probably made for private worship. The front shows Saint Jerome kneeling in front of a crucifix wedged into the stump of a tree. He beats his chest with a rock in empathy with Christ’s Passion (his torture and death at the Crucifixion). The lion resting b...

Not on display

The Burlington House Cartoon

Leonardo da Vinci

The Virgin Mary sits on her mother’s lap, her attention focused on the wriggling Christ Child. Her mother, Saint Anne, looks intently at her through deep-set eyes and points upwards to the heavens, indicating the child’s divinity. Christ’s cousin, Saint John the Baptist, leans against Anne’s lap...

On display elsewhere

The Madonna of the Pinks ('La Madonna dei Garofani')

Raphael

In this painting, Raphael transforms the familiar subject of the Virgin and Child into something entirely new. The figures are no longer posed stiffly and formally as in paintings by earlier artists, but display all the tender emotions one might expect between a young mother and her child. The pa...

Not on display

The Adoration of the Kings

Jan Gossaert (Jean Gossart)

This large altarpiece is crammed with peasants, animals, angels and richly dressed kings and courtiers, come to worship the infant Christ, who sits on his mother’s lap in a palatial but ruined building.Jean Gossart has signed the painting on the hat of Balthasar, the king on the left, and on the...

Room 15

Portrait of a Woman inspired by Lucretia

Lorenzo Lotto

A sumptuously dressed young woman holds a drawing of the Roman heroine Lucretia. The story of Lucretia, who lived in the early sixth century BC, is told in Livy’s History of Rome. Prince Sextus Tarquinius crept to Lucretia’s room at night and raped her. She told her father and husband, who were u...

Room 29

A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?)

Hans Holbein the Younger

A solemn woman wearing a soft cap of dense white fur sits with a red squirrel in her lap and a glossy-feathered starling at her shoulder. Common pets in the fifteenth-century, these animals also have a symbolic meaning and serve as clues to the sitter’s identity. She is thought to be Anne Lovell,...

Not on display

Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan

Hans Holbein the Younger

This elegant young woman is Christina of Denmark, the youngest daughter of King Christian of Denmark. In 1538, King Henry VIII of England was looking for a fourth wife, after the death of Jane Seymour the previous year. As Henry’s official court artist, Holbein was sent to Brussels to capture the...

Room 12

The Vendramin Family

Titian

This is Titian’s largest group portrait. The man in a red robe is probably Gabriel Vendramin (1484–1552). The man holding the altar may be Gabriel’s brother, Andrea Vendramin (1481–1547), and the boys are his seven sons. On the altar is a reliquary of the True Cross that their great-great-grandfa...

Room 9

Diana and Actaeon

Titian

While hunting, Actaeon accidentally stumbles upon the secret bathing place of Diana, chaste goddess of the hunt, and sees her naked. His fate is foretold by the stag’s skull on the plinth and the skins of Diana’s former prey hanging above her head. The conclusion of the story is shown in another...

Room 29

Belshazzar's Feast

Rembrandt

In his great dramatic painting, Rembrandt tells a story from the Old Testament (Daniel 5: 1–5, 25–8). The man in the gold cloak, enormous turban and tiny crown is Belshazzar, King of Babylon. His father had robbed the Temple of Jerusalem of all its sacred vessels. Using these to serve food at a f...

Room 22

The Toilet of Venus ('The Rokeby Venus')

Diego Velázquez

Venus, the goddess of love, reclines languidly on her bed, the curve of her body echoed in the sweep of sumptuous satin fabric. The pearly tones of her smooth skin contrast with the rich colours and lively brushstrokes of the curtain and sheets.Venus‘ face is reflected in the mirror held up by he...

Room 30

Mr and Mrs Andrews

Thomas Gainsborough

This portrait of Mr Robert (1725–1806) and Mrs Frances Andrews (about 1732–1780) is the masterpiece of Gainsborough’s early career. It has been described as a ‘triple portrait’ – of Robert Andrews, his wife and his land.Behind Mr and Mrs Andrews is a wide view looking south over the valley of the...

Room 34

Diana and Callisto

Titian

The nymph Callisto was the favourite of Diana, virgin goddess of the hunt. Jupiter, king of the gods, noticed her beauty and disguised himself to seduce her. Titian has painted the moment Diana forces Callisto to strip and bathe after hunting and discovers her pregnancy. The drama is heightened b...

Room 29