Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
An excellent range of periods and styles under one roof |
| Disadvantages: |
None |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
While Tate Modern has been grabbing the headlines during its first few very successful months, let's not forget the parent collection, now Tate Britain. If you want to follow the development of British painting from its Tudor and Stuart beginnings to the more contemporary age of Spencer, Hockney and Blake, you really should put this at the top of your list.
The National Gallery at Trafalgar Square has a few of the 18th century masterpieces, but you have to come here to see some of the equally important if less famous works of that era, such as a vast collection of Turner, some enchanting landscapes and animal pictures by Gainsborough and Stubbs, and the comparatively little-known but just as enjoyable Wright of Derby and Wilson. Don't forget Hogarth's mischievous 'The roast beef of old England', which some over-earnest souls may consider so outrageously xenophobic that you wonder why it hasn't been banished to the basement for not being politically correct! Victorian paintings aren't to everyone's taste, but unless you loathe them with a passion, allow me to recommend a look at the pre-Raphaelites and the contrasting styles of Whistler, Inchbold and Grimshaw with a fresh eye - you'll find them rewarding.
If it's more contemporary work you're after, then you'll find a worthwhile collection of modern European work, with names such as Seurat, Douanier Rousseau, Picasso, Magritte, Mondrian and Matisse among those represented.
Special exhibitions incur a charge, but access to the permanent collection is free.
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