At the National portrait gallery houses a huge collection of portraits of famous Britons. The venue chosen is appropriate: just North of Trafalgar square and Charing Cross, in the heart of the British capital.

Opened in 1856, the gallery became the world's first publicly accessible collection of paintings, graphic and sculptural portraits. The idea of such a Museum was proposed a member of the British Parliament, author and antiquary Earl Philip Henry Stanhope. At the gallery he fought ten years, on the third attempt the house of Commons with the approval of Queen Victoria has allocated money for the project. The nearest allies of Stanhope became a historian and politician Thomas Macaulay Babington and philosopher Thomas Carlyle. Sculptural busts of these three eminent Britons set above the main entrance to the gallery.

During the first forty years of his life collection, not just changing the address while philanthropist William Henry Alexander donated a large sum for the construction of a special room in St. Martin. It was erected by the architect Ewan Christian, who created the building in the style of the Florentine Renaissance. Subsequently, the gallery twice expanded: in the thirties of last century and in 2000, when a new wing with a huge escalator that lifts visitors to the collection of Tudor portraits.

The walls of the main building are decorated with busts of prominent figures: the critic and writer of the eighteenth century, Horace Walpole, painters Hans Holbein the Younger, sir Anthony van Dyck, William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence.

The gallery collection includes over eleven thousand portraits, executed in different techniques: about four thousand paintings, sculptures and miniatures, as well as seven thousand graphic works, of which during the year the public shows only three hundred (graphic works protect from light). In addition, the Museum has collected more than 220 thousand photographic images – more than half of them are original negatives.

The gallery holds true treasures: for example, the famous portrait of the "Chandos" brush of an unknown artist, depicting, believed to be of William Shakespeare. Exhibited self-portraits of prominent English artist William Hogarth, sir Joshua Reynolds, picturesque image of Thomas Cromwell and Richard III, sculpture of Queen Victoria and Prince albert in medieval costumes.

Until 1969, the gallery is not purchased portraits of living people (it was believed that after their death, should pass not less than ten years), but now the rules have changed – for example, one of Prince Charles here 74. Of recent acquisitions – a portrait of Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. Kate, whose grandfather was a miner, married Prince William and is now a patron of the National portrait gallery. The author of the paintings of Paul Emsley wrote Kate smiling and called his model a very warm person.

The collection covers a variety of genres. For example, here exhibited cigarette packs with images of Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw and Gilbert Keith Chesterton – portraits made with great humor.