Ginevra de' Benci [obverse]

Leonardo da Vinci

0:001 of 43

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C.

Leonardo's only painting in the Americas hangs here, in Washington, and admission has never cost anything. Andrew Mellon gave the collection and the building to the nation on one condition: that it carry no man’s name.

Play 43 works from this collection on your TV, phone or tablet with Momentable Art TV.

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What to see

A first visit to the National Gallery usually comes down to three things: the only Leonardo painting in the Americas, the American rooms of the West Building, and the Sculpture Garden across the lawn. If you have an hour, these are the works to spend it on.

Ginevra de' Benci [obverse] — Ginevra de’ Benci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci, and the only Leonardo painting in the Americas.

The American galleries
A Sioux Chief, His Daughter, and a Warrior · George Catlin
Catlin, Stuart, Whistler, Homer, in the West Building.

The Alba Madonna
Raphael painted it around 1510, in the round, for a chapel in Nocera.

Watson and the Shark
John Singleton Copley
Copley’s 1778 rescue in Havana harbour, painted from a survivor’s account.

Woman with a Parasol
Monet’s wife and son on a windy day at Argenteuil, 1875.

The Sculpture Garden
Free, outdoors, and open late through the summer.

Collections

The National Gallery collects across eight curatorial areas, from thirteenth-century altarpieces to photographs made this century. The paintings hang in the West Building, the modern and contemporary work in I. M. Pei’s East Building, and the works on paper come out in rotation to protect them from the light.

European paintings
Tavern Scene · David Teniers the Younger
The Middle Ages through the nineteenth century, including the Leonardo and Raphael’s Alba Madonna.

American art
Harvest Scene in the Delaware Valley · George Inness
Copley’s Watson and the Shark through the twentieth century.

Modern and contemporary art
The Crowning at Rheims of the Dauphin (Joan of Arc series: V) · Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel
The East Building, designed by I. M. Pei and opened in 1978.

Sculpture
Orpheus with a Lyre and a Long Scroll [reverse] · Giovanni Boldù
From Renaissance bronzes to the Sculpture Garden, added in 1999.

Prints
Binnenalster mit Jungfernstieg · Fritz Stoltenberg
Around 75,000 of them, one of the largest holdings anywhere.

Photographs
Portrait of a Young Man · Isaac Rehn
The nineteenth century to the present day.

Artists

The Gallery has collected European masters since Mellon’s founding gift and American painters ever since, from colonial portraitists to the Ashcan School. These are the artists whose work you can stream on Momentable, deepest holdings first.