National Portrait Gallery

Right now, curators are dusting the world's tiniest portrait... a masterpiece smaller than your thumbnail that measures just 19 millimeters by 16 millimeters, depicting Henrietta Anne, Duchess of Orleans from the 17th century. You're standing before the National Portrait Gallery, where this microscopic marvel lives alongside 215,000 other faces that shaped British history over five centuries. This Italian Renaissance fortress of red brick and Portland stone, designed by Ewan Christian, opened its doors in 1896 after the collection had wandered homeless through London for forty years. The gallery made headlines as arguably the world's first national museum dedicated entirely to portraits... but their very first acquisition in 1856 was a gamble that still sparks debate today - the Chandos portrait, believed to be the only painting of William Shakespeare created during his lifetime. As you step through these grand arched entrances into the soaring galleries, you're entering a place where tragedy once struck... in 1909, Room 27 witnessed a murder-suicide as a couple argued over a painting before visitors' horrified eyes. The gallery harbored a peculiar rule until 1969 - no portraits of living people could hang here unless they wore a crown, meaning only royalty escaped the ten-year death requirement. From Julia Margaret Cameron's dreamlike Victorian photographs to Lewis Carroll's whimsical Christ Church Album, every corridor whispers stories of genius, scandal, and power that transformed a nation.