Dulwich Picture Gallery is England’s first purpose-built public art gallery: it was founded in 1811 when Sir Francis Bourgeois RA bequeathed his collection of Old Master paintings “for the inspection of the public”. The Gallery was designed by Regency architect Sir John Soane and houses one of the country’s fi nest collections of Old Masters, especially rich in French, Italian and Spanish Baroque paintings and in British portraits from Tudor times to the nineteenth century.