DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY
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The Dulwich Picture Gallery is the oldest picture gallery in England. It was also the first public art gallery in the world, founded in 1811. Today, it hosts some of the UK's biggest exhibitions, including "Rembrant's Light". Its holdings, virtually unchanged since the early 19th century, were created from a number of private collections. Originally assembled by the dealer Noël Desenfans, it was intended as the basis for the Royal Polish Collection. When Poland was partitioned in 1795, it was purchased by the painter Sir Francis Bourgeois, who donated 371 paintings to the museum. The museum is located in a charming old London suburb built around Alleyn's College of God's Gift, a school founded in 1619 by one of Shakespeare's earliest actors, Edward Alleyn - who made his fortune through his monopoly on bear and bull fighting. The building, the work of renowned architect and collector Sir John Soane (1811), stands opposite Dulwich Park, on the grounds of the famous Dulwich College.
The museum boasts an important collection of Dutch landscape painters, French Baroque canvases and genre paintings. One room is devoted to Gainsborough, but there are also paintings by Rembrandt, Reynolds, Rubens, Reni, Watteau, Murillo, Van Dyck, Lawrence, Canaletto, Piero de Cosimo, Raphael and Tiepolo. Workshops, concerts, readings, lectures and debates are also organized.
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