The Main Vestibule, just beyond the Portico entrance, leads up the stairs to Central Hall, Room 1 and the galleries on the main floor. Boris Anrep's mosaics were added in the 1920s and 30s, depicting leading figures of the day as characters from mythology.
Main Vestibule
Paintings in this room
Dated 1836, this is a replica of the marble bust of Charles Long, 1st Baron Farnborough (1760–1838), commissioned in 1819 by the sitter’s father-in-law, Sir Abraham Hume. The original was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1820 and is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Who commissioned...
This bust was commissioned by the National Gallery to acknowledge Paul Getty’s £50 million donation to the institution. It sits inside the Portico Entrance and was designed to make a pair with Sir Francis Chantrey’s marble bust of 1836 depicting Charles Long, 1st Baron Farnborough, a Victorian po...
Herod, ruler of Galilee, promised his stepdaughter Salome anything she desired if she danced for him; prompted by her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist. The story of the beheading, with its mixture of religion, violence and eroticism, had been depicted many times in art, not leas...