About
A journey into the collection... is a series of guided tours of the collection exploring various themes that encourage you to engage with either your favourite paintings, or those hidden gems within the gallery.
The meeting place for each tour is in Annenberg Court. Every tour is a walking tour throughout the Gallery and headsets will be provided.
Please note that these tours will run for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Pick your tour below!
National Gallery portraits

In this tour the focus is on portraiture. There’s a huge variety of portraits in the National Gallery and they all want to convince us of the beauty of the sitter, or their wealth, their virtue, their learning, and much more. The tour will search for some of these people and interrogate what it is the subject what they want us to think about them, how the artist flattered them, and then find out whether their portraits match their characters.
A history of academies

When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768 it became the arbiter of taste. It set the art rules, it decided which were the best artists and it taught us what to value in art.
On this journey into the collection, we will look at some of the artists favoured by the Art Academies such as ‘The Divine Raphael’. We’ll look at how and why they championed history painting above all other types, hear about some of the big art debates that got academicians hot under the collar, and of course we’ll discuss those artists who decided to challenge the Academies and break all their art rules.
Your host
Sarah Ciacci has an MA in late 19th-century French painting and 20th-century abstract art from University College, London. Qualifying as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London in 2008, Sarah has been a National Gallery guide ever since.
Sarah runs tours for My Kids, taught Art History for a decade at Richmond University, and is a Gallery Educator and an Accredited Lecturer for the Arts Society.



A journey into the collection...
Tickets
Standard: £20
Interested in joining as a Member? This is an event usually exclusive to Members. For those curious about joining, grab this opportunity to see what the kinds of events you could participate in.
Please meet next to the Getty Desk located in Annenberg Court for registration and to collect your headset (optional but recommended).