National launches eGallery for Old Masters
The National Gallery has become the first major art collection to allow internet users to zoom electronically into any picture in its archive.
The gallery's new website, unveiled today, contains 12,000 images, 18 hours of audio and 200 videos.
Visitors to the site can even see a virtual floorplan of the gallery to plan their visit and see where their favourite works are hung.
Users can also search by artist and period or focus on the gallery's latest loans and acquisitions. For new visitors to the gallery, there is also a new section of 30 "must-see" paintings.
Charlotte Sexton, head of new media at the gallery, said: "The National Gallery's new website raises the bar for cultural websites. It offers exceptional access to this world-class collection of Western European paintings and to our expert knowledge about them."
The gallery says the site will also host a calendar of the gallery's programme of talks, courses and workshops. It is also designed to showcase the gallery's leading research into Old Masters.
A dedicated research section will be updated with new findings, catalogue entries and detailed information about the care of the collection by the Gallery's leading Scientific and Conservation Departments.
The scientific research and scholarship of the gallery is also to be examined in a new exhibition called Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries. The free show next summer will highlight the gallery's errors by using the most up-to-date techniques to reveal the misunderstandings of earlier curators.
In 1845, for example, the gallery bought A Man with a Skull as being by Hans Holbein the Younger. Modern analysis of the wood panel support indicates the painting actually postdates Holbein's death.
Gallery director Nicholas Penny said forged paintings were a vital part of the collection, as they enabled scholars to learn counterfeiters' techniques.
"I wish we had more fakes. You only get good at spotting them if you know what you are looking for," he said.
Other exhibitions in the new programme announced today include the first exhibition in Britain dedicated to scenes of Venice by Canaletto and rivals such as Francesco Guardi and Bernardo Bellotto. It will be the biggest display since a famous show held in Venice itself more than 40 years ago.
The exhibition will run from 13 October 2010 to 16 January 2011.
The National is also to exhibit four large-scale allegorical works, called Acts of Mercy, painted between 1915 and 1920 by the British Symbolist painter Frederick Cayley Robinson.
The launch comes as the National Portrait Gallery is threatening Wikipedia with legal action after 3,300 digital photos of its collection were uploaded without permission.
