The ultimate street signs, historical sites and house numbers | Traffic | Sign's details: London - Charing Cross Subway Station

Address:

Trafalgar Square / Charing Cross Stn (Stop G), London WC2N 4JF, UK

Category:

Traffic

City:

London

Country:

United Kingdom

Shape:

Rectangle

Material:

Stone, marble …

Placement:

Wall or fence

Tags:

London Underground (Tube) Trains and railroads

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On the sign:

NATIONAL GALLERY
The National Gallery was founded in 1824. In that year Parliament voted a sum of money to buy a small private collection of paintings, and thus created the nucleus of a public collection for the nation. Not until 1838 did the Gallery open on its familiar site in Trafalgar Square, in the present building, specifically designed for it by the architect William Wilkins. The building has been modernised and added to considerably since then, though the facade remains substantially unchanged.

Over the years the Collection, of European painting only, has grown to more than 2,000 items, virtually all of which are normally on permanent display. Important acquisitions continue to be made. All the major schools of old master painting are included in the Collection, which can claim to be one of the most balanced and representative among world-famous art galleries. The works range in date from the middle of the thirteenth century in Italy up to examples by Matisse and Picasso from early in the present century, and include such masterpieces as the ’Wilton Diptych’ the Arnolfini double portrait by Jan van Eyck and the ’Rokeby Venus’ by Velazquez, as well as the large-scale drawing (the ’Cartoon’) by Leonardo da Vinci.

[Map of the Trafalgar Square and National Gallery area]

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
The National Portrait Gallery is a gallery of famous British faces. It was founded in 1856, a few years after the Great Exhibition, the Vote being supported in Parliament by the then Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston. For Britain the second half of the nineteenth century was as an age of optimism, progress and national supremacy. The Victorians were ready for heroes.

The Gallery was originally situated in Great George Street, near the Houses of Parliament. As the collection grew it was housed first in the South Kensington museums area, then at Bethnal Green. Both premises proved unsatisfactory. The present building, facing the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, with its fine Renaissance inspired frontage onto Charing Cross Road, was the gift of William Henry Alexander, a wealthy property owner and patron of the arts. The Gallery opened here in 1896. An extension was built in the 1930’s.

The first portrait to enter the collection was a gift of the only authentic likeness of William Shakespeare. By the time Queen Victoria died one thousand portraits had been acquired. Now the number is nearer ten thousand. At first paintings and sculpture only were collected. In spite of the Victorian craze for photography, photographs were rejected as mere records. Caricature was even less admissible. Both are now an integral part of the collection. The Gallery includes such masterpieces as Hilliard’s miniature of Drake and Raleigh, Kneller’s Sir Christopher Wren, Reynold’s Warren Hastings, Watt’s Ellen Terry and Sickert’s Sir Winston Churchill; and such familiar and well-loved portraits as those of Samuel Pepys, the Bronte Sisters, Lawrence of Arabia and Beatrix. Potter. Most of our Kings and Queens, the present Queen and other members of the royal family, are also represented.

CHARING CROSS
FOR TRAFALGAR SQUARE
The roundel

[Portraits from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery]
RICHARDUS III / HENRICH VII / HENRY V
ELIZABETH I / CARDINAL WOOLSEY / HENRY VIII
LADI MARI / ANNA BOLINA / EDWARDE IIII

[Drawing of a monkey with chains]
[Photo from the collection of the National Gallery: Henri Rousseau’s Tiger in a Tropical Storm or Surprised!]

[Drawing of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist - The Burlington House Cartoon (Modello) - Leonardo da Vinci]
This large-scale drawing, by probably the most multi-talented and fascinating of all Italian Renaissance artists, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is on several sheets of paper and must have been begun as the actual size model, or ’cartoon’, for a painting. Very rarely do such cartoons survive. It shows the common religious subject of the Virgin and Child with St Anne, mother of the Virgin, and the young St John the Baptist, but shows it in a quite uncommon way whereby mother and daughter appear almost of equal age, their heads juxtaposed closely and their bodies blended to form a single lap to support the Infant Christ.

The cartoon is not pricked for transfer, as was the standard practice when cartoons were used for paintings, and no known painting by Leonardo follows this design. It was probably executed by him when he was in Milan in the mid 1490’s. Another now lost cartoon of the subject was done by him a few years later, after his return to bis native Florence. The cartoon’s early history is not clearly established. It was in England, and in the possession of the Royal Academy, by 1779. It remained at the Academy until sold in 1962. A public appeal for it was launched, organised by the National Art-Collections Fund

Thanks to their efforts, public contributions and a special Government grant, it was acquired for the National Gallery

[The Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello]

[Venus and Mars (Botticelli)]

[Items on Lord Byron Willian Shakespeare Christopher Wren and Lord Nelson, from the National Portrait Gallery]
[Bust of Sir Christopher Wren, and St Paul’s Cathedral that he designed]
[Portrait of Lord Byron, and a letter that Byron wrote to Percy Bysshe Shelley]
[Portrait of Admiral Horatio Nelson, and an illustration of the times headlines]
[Portrait of William Shakespeare and poem about the image]

[Illustration of the Gunpowder Plot]

[Somerset House Conference painting]

Photography:

2022
Eli Zvuluny

Comments:

The interior of the Tube station on the Bakerloo line at Charing Cross station

This part is dedicated to the National Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery.

Below are enlarged images of the parts of the remote control:
The National Gallery

Sign: London - Charing Cross Subway Station - Interior of the station (3)

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