​The Wallace Collection

Following the landmark decision to temporarily lend works from the Wallace Collection, the museum announced that its inaugural loan would be Titian’s Perseus and Andromeda, which will join the National Gallery’s forthcoming Titian exhibition in Spring 2020. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the artist’s six great mythological paintings, known as the ‘poesie’, together for the first time since the late 16th-century.

In return, the National Gallery will loan Rubens’s A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning to the Wallace Collection, where it will be displayed alongside its companion piece, Rubens' Rainbow Landscape from May - September 2020. Both pieces were painted by Rubens for his own pleasure and remained in his personal collection until his death. The paintings were separated in the early 19th-century, and will be reunited at the Wallace Collection for the first time in over two hundred years.

António Horta-Osório, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, said: “Working in partnership with research institutions, nationally and internationally, in order to contribute to important art historical projects sits at the heart of the Wallace Collection’s strategy, Making Culture Matter. Our collaboration with the National Gallery speaks directly to this critical aim, and the Board of Trustees is thrilled that the collection will be able to participate in these historically significant reunifications.”

Dr. Xavier Bray, Director of the Wallace Collection, said: “I am delighted that we are able to help the National Gallery to bring together Titian’s magnificent ‘poesie’, enabling visitors to see the complete commission for the first time in over 400 years. In return, we are excited to reunite Rubens’s A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning with his Rainbow Landscape at the Wallace Collection, which were always intended to be seen as a pair. This is an unprecedented moment in art history, made possible by the Wallace Collection’s decision to lend works for the first time.”

Dr. Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, said: “For the first time in over four centuries, thanks to the Wallace Collection’s loan of Titian’s Perseus and Andromeda, all of the artist’s late ‘poesie’ mythologies will be seen together. For the first time in over two centuries, Rubens’s two great late landscapes will be seen together. The beneficiary is the general public.” (Tianxing Bai)