Art & Design

National Gallery: 170 years of feeding our craving for beauty

As annual visitor numbers top the million mark, director Caroline Campbell tells Sara Keating about the gallery’s latest grand collaborative exhibition

Dr Caroline Campbell, director of the National Gallery of Ireland, in the exhibition Turning Heads: Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer. Picture: Fergal Phillips

Picture the scene. Dublin: 1853. While the countryside has been decimated by the recent Famine, the city is thriving. On the grounds of Leinster House, a Great Industrial Exhibition is taking place. Housed inside a magnificent domed structure, there are displays of Irish furniture and craft, ancient artefacts and modern machineries.

To the south of the Central Hall, a gallery has been dedicated to Fine Art Display, the first of the many international World Fairs ...