London: The History of England in Portraiture｜United Kingdom

Meet your guide at the National Portrait Gallery and begin your tour. Discover 12 of the best and most significant portraits in the gallery. Learn about the subjects, the societies they lived in, and the legacies they left behind.

Chart the society and growth of London and England over the last 400 years, from a remote inward-looking island to a world power whose influence spanned the globe, for good or ill.

Meet kings and queens, and tantalizing might-have-beens who, but for fate, would have taken history down a different path. Encounter scientists and architects, socially radical women, and men and women of letters.

See how the portraits themselves present them in a certain light, and wonder if they deserved all the flattery.