National Gallery takes to the streets of London

The National Gallery is encouraging people to hang around the streets of Soho and a corner of Covent Garden once infamous for its filth and debauchery. But it is not suggesting they indulge in anything mucky; it merely wants them to admire some art.



Full-scale framed reproductions of 30 masterpieces from the National Gallery - among them works by Caravaggio, Rubens and Constable - are going up on the outside walls of buildings including a bookmaker's and a pub. The 16th century Grotesque Old Woman, said to have inspired Tenniel's illustration of the Ugly Duchess in Alice in Wonderland, looks quite at home in Fouberts Place, in a district famous then and now for its eccentrics. Sandro Botticelli's ravishing Venus and Mars has gone up on the wall of Sweaty Betty in Kingly Court.

The gallery hopes the spectacular reproductions will lure visitors to the real thing in Trafalgar Square.

There are photo galleries here and here.