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National Gallery: Famous artworks go on loan for first time on 200th birthday

The National Gallery, London The Water-Lily Pond by Monet 1899The National Gallery, London
Monet's The Water-Lily Pond has been loaned to York Art Gallery

The National Gallery has sent some of its finest masterpieces around the UK to mark its 200th anniversary.

Twelve famous artworks including Constable's The Hay Wain, Botticelli's Venus and Mars, and Renoir's The Umbrellas have travelled across the UK.

Simultaneous exhibitions opened on Friday at 12 institutions, putting more than half of the population within an hour of one of the masterpieces.

Some of the paintings have never been loaned by the gallery before.

The £95m bicentenary plans also include a blockbuster Van Gogh show, the creation of a new digital gallery, a UK road trip of art workshops, and a refurbishment of the National Gallery site at London's Trafalgar Square.

Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller has been commissioned to create a work celebrating 200 years of public art.

The National Gallery will also host a party to celebrate its birthday weekend, with live music from Jools Holland, DJ performances and interactive art workshops.

The National Gallery, London The National Gallery says it has exciting plans for one of its most popular and well-loved paintings, Van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888) as part of its celebrationsThe National Gallery, London
The gallery will stage its first exhibition of the paintings of Van Gogh this autumn

​​The 12 National treasures

  • A Young Woman standing at a Virginal - Vermeer (National Galleries Scotland: National, Edinburgh)
  • The Supper at Emmaus - Caravaggio (Ulster Museum, Belfast)
  • The Rokeby Venus - Velázquez (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool)
  • The Fighting Temeraire - JMW Turner (Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne)
  • The Water-Lily Pond - Monet (York Art Gallery)
  • Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria - Artemisia Gentileschi (Ikon Gallery, Birmingham)
  • The Umbrellas - Renoir (Leicester Museum & Art Gallery)
  • The Hay Wain - Constable (Bristol Museum & Art Gallery)
  • The Stonemason's Yard - Canaletto (National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth)
  • Venus and Mars - Botticelli (The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)
  • The Wilton Diptych - unknown (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
  • Self Portrait at the Age of 34 - Rembrandt (Brighton Museum & Art Gallery)

The National Gallery was set up 200 years ago by Parliament to create a collection of paintings for the use of the public. But for much of the past two centuries, the only way that the public could see the art was in person in London.

In recent decades, the gallery has stepped up its efforts to share its art more widely across the nation. After it bought a self-portrait by acclaimed 17th Century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi in 2018, the painting went on a tour of the UK, not to museums and galleries but to places where different kinds of people might actually see it.

The work spent time in a GP's surgery in Yorkshire, a girls' school in Newcastle, a library in Glasgow and even a women's prison in Surrey.

The National Gallery, London Inmates in a women's prison had the chance to see Artemisia Gentileschi's Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (about 1615-17), when it went on tour in 2018The National Gallery, London
Inmates in a women's prison had the chance to see Artemisia Gentileschi's Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (about 1615-17) in 2018

Two of the 12 masterpieces in the latest scheme have never been loaned by the National Gallery before - Botticelli's Venus and Mars and the 14th Century Wilton Diptych, regarded as one of the greatest pictures ever produced in the UK.

The National Gallery, London Venus and Mars by Botticelli (circa 1485) is one of the paintings that are going on loan for the first timeThe National Gallery, London
Venus and Mars by Botticelli (circa 1485) is on loan for the first time
The National Gallery, London Richard II presented to the Virgin and Child by his Patron Saint John the Baptist and Saints Edward and Edmund ('The Wilton Diptych') (about 1395-9) is the second work going on loan for the first timeThe National Gallery, London
The work known as The Wilton Diptych (about 1395-9) is also on loan for the first time

But with only 12 paintings out of a collection now totalling around 2,400 being lent for the NG200: National Treasures exhibitions, the gallery's plans could be accused of being small-scale in outlook.

And of the 12 on loan, only one is by a woman - Gentileschi's Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

The National Gallery, London The Umbrellas by Renoir (circa 1881) is among the 12 paintings that will be lent to another institution in the UKThe National Gallery, London
The Umbrellas by Renoir (circa 1881) is on show in Leicester

Dr Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery, said it was "the most ambitious, national programme we have ever undertaken".

It is "all about reaching out right across the nation", he said, adding: "A significant amount of the activities are in regional locations and are mostly free. We also want to reach out globally and promote the UK."