Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery

Description:

• The nucleus of this collection was acquired by Samuel Courtauld, who upon his death in 1947, left it to the University of London. Today it houses the biggest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings in Britain, with masterpieces by Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, van Gogh, and Gauguin. The gallery also has a superb collection of old-master paintings and drawings, including works by Rubens and Michelangelo; early-Italian paintings, ivories, and majolica; the Lee collection of old masters; and early-20th-century English, French, and British paintings.

  Second floor galleries display paintings and sculptures from the late 19th and 20th centuries, including an outstanding group of Fauve works and art by everybody from Matisse to Dufy. We come here at least once every season to revisit one work in particular: Manet's exquisite A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Many of the paintings are displayed without glass, giving the gallery a more intimate feeling than most.

  
  

• © Frommer's 2013