National Gallery, London

The National Gallery is London's public art museum on Trafalgar Square, founded in 1824 when the British government purchased paintings from the estate of collector John Julius Angerstein. Its collection of more than 2,300 paintings spans the mid-13th century to 1900, tracing the history of Western European painting from Giotto to Cézanne, with free entry to the main collection. The present building, designed by William Wilkins and opened in 1838, was later extended westward by the Postmodernist Sainsbury Wing, added in 1991.