A free collection of European painting in Trafalgar Square, with major works by Van Gogh, Turner, Velázquez, and Leonardo. Its central location makes it easy to combine with Westminster, Covent Garden, or a West End evening.
Why It’s Worth Your Time
The National Gallery places a major collection of European painting in the center of London, with free general admission. First-time visitors can build a concise route around works by Van Gogh, Turner, Velázquez, and Leonardo, then continue into Covent Garden, Westminster, or the West End. The gallery is manageable in about two hours if you choose priorities, while Friday evening opening works well before dinner or a performance.
What Stands Out
- Van Gogh's Sunflowers (Room 43): the painting that draws the longest pauses — the work that anchored post-Impressionism's emotional power
- Turner's The Fighting Temeraire (Room 34): the most-voted favorite in the collection — the warship's final voyage at sunset, the most English painting
- Velázquez's Rokeby Venus: the only surviving female nude by Velázquez — with the suffragette meat-cleaver repair lines still visible
- Da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks: the London version, with X-ray analysis displaying what was painted over
- Holbein's The Ambassadors: the anamorphic skull that resolves only from the side — Renaissance painting's most famous optical illusion
- Free, Trafalgar Square: Europe's greatest free art collection at the geographic center of London