The National Gallery of Ireland, founded in 1854, has acquired an extraordinary collection of masterpieces, by Caravaggio, Poussin, Rubens, Uccello, Vel�zquez and Vermeer, as well as British artists such as Gainsborough and Reynolds and the leading lights of Irish art, from James Barry to Jack Yeats. The Gallery has benefited from generous donations by such figures as George Bernard Shaw Lane (whose happy memories of time passed there in his youth led him to bequeath the Gallery his royalties) and wealthy patrons such as Milltown, Beit, Mahon and Chester Beatty. Here the story of the Gallery, with all its tribulations and struggles, good and bad luck, good and bad judgement, and all its numerous personalities, is told for the first time. Though it also reveals the width and depth of the collection, and is splendidly illustrated with colour plates, this book is far from being a mere list of acquisitions, revealing much about the rebirth of a nation and changing attitudes to art over time.

Peter Somerville-Large is a distinguished author and journalist, whose works include Dublin: A Social History and The Irish Country House: A Social History.

ISBN 1 904288 08 1 245 x 170 mm, hardback 480 pages, 116 colour illustrations