\paperw3360 \margr0\margl0\ATXph16380 \plain \fs20 \pard\tx3255\tx6525\tx9780\ATXts240\ATXbrdr0 \f1 \fs22 London was the last major European capital to acquire a governmentally s
ponsored art collection. Vienna had had one since 1781, and Paris since 1793. Various influential London painters began to press for a public gallery early in the 1800s, and when the Austrian government decided to pay a twenty-five-year-old war debt, t
he funds suddenly became available. This was in 1823, and soon after a private collection of Old Masters came on the market. Those original 38 pictures were purchased and housed in various cramped venues until 1838, when the \b \cf4 \ATXht10691000 Neo-
Classical\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 edifice facing Trafalgar Square was ready. That year visitors numbered just under 400,000; seven years later attendance had almost doubled; and by 1851, the year of the \b \cf4 \ATXht10861000 Great Exhibition\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 ,
