National Gallery archive online
November 8 2012
Picture: BG
The National Gallery has put its archive catalogue online. You can search for all sorts of things. From the NG's site:
What you might find
With records dating back to 1824, the Archive has an array of material covering everything from the travel notebooks of the Gallery’s first Director, Sir Charles Eastlake, to details about contemporary art exhibitions.
Highlights include records that relate to:
- Daily life at the Gallery in Victorian Britain (NGA2/3/2/13)
- Correspondence from Charles Dickens (NGA1/22/267)
- Vigorous debates on the Gallery opening on Sundays in 1896 (NG7/198/1)
- The arrival of technology at the Gallery when a phone line to Old Scotland Yard was installed in 1898 (NG17/6)
- Details about acquiring Degas’ paintings from Paris whilst it was under German bombardment during the First World War (NG14/25/1)
- A complete visual record of the evacuation of the paintings to Wales during the Second World War (NG30/1941/8)
- The public appeal to secure Titian’s ‘Death of Actaeon’ for the nation in 1971-2 (NG69/1)
I love the one about Sunday openings. We must be forever grateful for a:
Letter from the Sunday Society enclosing a memorial signed by 1050 persons in favour of keeping the National Gallery open all the year round on Sundays.
Does anyone want to start an Evening Openings Society? My life would be a great deal better if I could easily visit museums after work. Wouldn't yours?
