SOMETIMES A LITTLE geopolitical rivalry can produce a big pay-off. France opened the Louvre in 1793. The Netherlands followed with what is now known as the Rijksmuseum, then Spain with the Prado. Britain had flirted with the idea of a national collection of art since the 1770s but did not make a move until 1824.
Unlike in France and Spain, the British royal family would not hand over its beloved paintings. So the government decided to purchase 38, many of them Old Masters, from John Julius Angerstein, an insurance broker, for £57,000 (roughly $6.5m in today’s money). As one MP proclaimed, Britain had finally been rescued “from a disgrace which the want of such an establishment had long entailed upon it”.