National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery is a London museum whose collection portrays historically significant people, especially those connected with British history.

Portrait: An image or description representing a particular person, often emphasizing appearance or character. Portraits are the museum’s defining subject and organizing principle.
George Scharf: A German-born British art historian and the National Portrait Gallery’s first director. As director from 1857, he helped establish the gallery’s early collecting and exhibition practices.
National Portrait Gallery digital collection: The National Portrait Gallery’s online catalog of portraits and related collection information. It makes works and biographical records available beyond the museum’s physical galleries.
Collective memory: The shared ways a group remembers and interprets its past. The gallery helps give public form to memories of people and events in British history.
National Portrait Gallery Collection: The National Portrait Gallery’s collection of portraits depicting historically significant people. Its works turn the museum’s mission into a record of individual lives.
Philip Henry Stanhope: A British politician and historian who proposed establishing a national portrait gallery. His 1846 proposal set out the idea behind the institution founded eleven years later.
National Portrait Gallery research: Scholarly work on the National Portrait Gallery’s collection, subjects, and portrait histories. Research identifies sitters, dates works, and interprets the histories represented in the collection.
Historical portrait: A portrait of a person whose historical significance gives the image documentary or commemorative importance. The gallery’s displays make portraits evidence as well as representations of their subjects.
British history: The history of the peoples, states, and societies associated with Britain. Many subjects in the collection are significant chiefly through their place in British history.
National Portrait Gallery Act 1856: The British act of Parliament that provided for establishing the National Portrait Gallery. It gave legal form to the gallery’s founding as a public institution.

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