On 10 May, as part of the Gallery’s 200th birthday celebrations, the National Gallery in London unveiled the first full rehang of its collection since the opening of the Sainsbury Wing in 1991. The wing has been closed for just over two years, to create an enlarged and more welcoming entrance foyer. The fifteen rooms in the Sainsbury Wing now display around 300 pictures, meaning that the National Gallery shows nearly 40% of its collection.

34 years after the last full rehang, the basic scheme remains similar: a chronological sequence from the west of the building complex to the east, with northern and southern European paintings usually in separate rooms. The positions of many pictures have been changed and the number of works on display is slightly greater than before, thanks to a marginally denser hang, more glass cases in the centre of rooms, two walls with 34 plein-air landscape oil sketches (Room 39) and an additional space (Room 15a) with small Dutch pictures.

Three artists are being honored with displays in dedicated rooms: Titian, Rembrandt and Claude Monet. In addition, works by female artists have been given greater prominence. The National Gallery has only 27 paintings by women (a reflection of their relative rarity before the late nineteenth century), of which twelve are on display, including works by Judith Leyster and Rachel Ruysch.

In addition, a group of new acquisitions is was announced as part of the opening of the rehang, including A Banquet Still Life (1622) by Floris van Dijck (ca.1575-1651) and The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret (ca. 1510) by an unknown Dutch or French artist.

Bart Cornelis, Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings 1600-1800 at the National Gallery, tells us more about the rehang in the latest feature on the CODART website: Getting the Hang of It: The Redisplay of the Permanent Collection at the National Gallery, London.