Fundraising Appeals

To mark our Bicentenary on 10 May 2024, we launched a year-long festival of art and a suite of building projects, known as NG200.  

As we prepared to celebrate our history as the nation’s gallery and serve the public for the next 200 years, we called upon our supporters to help make our vision for our third century a reality.  

As a charity, we rely on the public to help us achieve great things. Thanks to generous contributions from over 3,400 donors, the National Gallery raised the final £5.8 million of the £95 million needed for our Bicentenary campaign. We are so grateful to everyone for their support which has ensured that the Gallery can continue to share the world’s greatest paintings in new and creative ways across the nation and the world. 

The painting had been an acquisition priority for us since 1995 when we first attempted to buy it. Not only is it a wonderful example of Orazio’s rich colouring, skill at painting shiny, sumptuous fabrics, and sense of courtly elegance, The Finding of Moses has an important place in British history. It is the first painting from the time when Orazio travelled to England to be a painter at the court of Charles I in London. Painted during his 12-year residence, the huge canvas was commissioned for the Queen’s House at Greenwich.

‘The Finding of Moses’ was on loan to us since 2002 and has been at the heart of our Italian Baroque display, making connections with other artists in our collection including Caravaggio, Reni, Rubens, and Van Dyck. Most recently, this has also included the artist Artemisia Gentileschi, Orazio’s daughter. 

Artemisia is the most celebrated female painter of the 17th century; a time when very few women became artists. Displaying paintings by father and daughter in the same room shows how much Artemisia learnt from Orazio while also developing her own style and technique.

This painting, the first by Orazio in our collection, will stay on public display in Trafalgar Square for everyone to enjoy now and in the future, thanks to generous support from the public.

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who donated to help raise the last £2 million needed to buy a painting of outstanding importance for the national heritage.

Thanks to over 300 donors and support from the Leche Trust, the restoration of Rubens’ The Birth of Venus was fully funded.

Thank you to all who helped make this possible, we are deeply grateful to you for your support.