London - Dulwich Picture Gallery

Barely 10km/6mi south of central London is the residential district of Dulwich Village, which still preserves something of a village-like atmosphere, with its handsome Georgian villas, the only surviving London tollhouse, a park and a college. The college was founded in the early 17th C by Edward Alleyn (1566-1626), a wealthy Shakespearean actor and keeper of the King's wild beasts, as the College of God's Gift, and refounded in the 19th C as Dulwich College and Alleyn's School. The picture gallery, designed by Sir John Soane, was the first public art gallery in London (1814); it was restored after suffering severe damage during World War II. The nucleus of the gallery was formed from the collection of a Frenchman, Noël Desenfans, who bequeathed it to his friend, Sir Francis Bourgeois in 1807. In the mausoleum at the rear of the gallery are the tombs of Desenfans, Bourgeois and his wife. The gallery contains works of various Dutch schools (Rembrandt, J. van Ruisdael, Aelbert Cuyp, etc.), 17th and 18th C portraits by British painters (Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, Sir Thomas Lawrence), and pictures by Italian (Raphael, Paul Veronese, Guercino, Canaletto, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, etc.), Flemish (Rubens, van Dyck, David Teniers), Spanish (Murillo, etc.) and French (Watteau, Poussin, Le Brun) masters. The close arrangement of pictures reflects the style of the 19th C.