Allan Ramsay’s iconic portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been included in the BBC project A History of the World. This remarkable portrait was created as a gift for the philosopher’s host, after Rousseau was forced to flee the Swiss and French authorities to Britain in 1766. The painting is now on show at the National Gallery of Scotland.

A History of the World is a unique partnership between the BBC, the British Museum and other collections across the UK, including the National Galleries of Scotland. As a part of this project Allan Ramsay’s painting has now been incorporated into the BBC’s digital museum of world history.

The National Gallery of Scotland is delighted to announce that the painting, The Madonna of the Yarnwinder by Leonardo da Vinci will go on display in the Gallery from today. In 2003 it was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle, the Dumfriesshire home of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. The painting was recovered in 2007.

The Madonna of the Yarnwinder is the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in Scotland and is on loan to the Gallery from the Duke and the Trustees of the Buccleuch Heritage Trust.

A recent article in the British Art Journal by Dr Edward Corp has led curators at the SNPG to re-assess the identity of the sitter in a pastel by Maurice Quentin de la Tour.

The painting was previously thought to depict Prince Charles Edward Stuart.  Both Charles and his younger brother Prince Henry Benedict, who closely resembled each other, sat for the French artist in the mid-1740s, but only the pastel now in question is known to have survived.

In the absence of wholly conclusive evidence, Dr Corp’s new research suggests that it is more likely that our pastel depicts Henry, and the portrait will be appropriately labelled when it goes on display in the refurbished Portrait Gallery, which is due to re-open in autumn 2011.

A new commission by the Scottish Turner prize winning artist Martin Creed has been installed on the front of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The striking blue neon text entitled, Work No. 975 EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT, is positioned along the length of the frieze on the front of the Gallery.

The work is on show as part of What you see is where you’re at, a total re-hang of the gallery to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding, which opens to the public on the 28th November.

The National Galleries of Scotland is delighted to announce a £2 million boost to its Portrait of the Nation project, the ambitious scheme to transform the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.  This generous award, which has been made by The Monument Trust, a Sainsbury Family Charitable Trust, comes in the week that building contractors moved into the Gallery, and work began in earnest on the refurbishment.

Following on from contributions from other major funders, such as the Scottish Government, which committed £5.1 million in December 2007, and the Heritage Lottery Fund, which confirmed its grant of £4.8 million in March 2009, we have now raised more than 80 percent of the £17.6 million total.

A major work by Turner prize nominated artist Nathan Coley has been installed in the grounds of the Dean Gallery.  Visitors will be confronted by a large illuminated text with the words: ‘THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE’.

The text is attached to a free-standing scaffold, six metres high and six metres wide. The words are divided into three lines, giving them the formal appearance of a poem.

This art work has been installed in advance of the first part of the forthcoming re-hang of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, What you see is where you’re at, which opens on 28th November.

The 53 fantastic winning pieces from this year's Art Competition for Schools will be on display around Scotland as follows:

• 26 October 2009 - 13 January 2010 at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh
• 18 January 2010 - 14 March 2010 at The MacRobert Art Centre, Stirling
• 1 April 2010 - 19 May 2010 at The Lime Tree Gallery, Fort William

If you missed them the first time round, or you are looking for inspiration for this year's competition, come along and see how children from nursery, primary, secondary and special education schools have taken inspiration from the National Galleries of Scotland's collection.

We are delighted to announce a new collaboration with Victor and Carina Contini, the hugely successful partnership that brought the restaurant Centotre to Edinburgh.

The Scottish Café and Restaurant at the National Gallery will celebrate the very best ingredients from Scottish producers and growers, offering delicious, yet affordable food in a wonderful setting.

The restaurant, which, for the first time, will serve breakfast every day from 9.00 am, will open on 19 October 2009, in the National Gallery Complex, on The Mound. The restaurant will also now open for dinner on Saturday evenings.

For more information, see Shopping & Eating at the National Gallery.

The National Galleries of Scotland is delighted to announce a major new commission by 2009 Turner Prize nominee Richard Wright.

The Stairwells Project will see the internationally acclaimed, Glasgow-based artist make wall-drawings in the stairwells of the Dean Gallery. The project has been made possible by the Scottish Government's Expo Fund, which has announced awards for three new commissions this week.

The Stairwells Project will be Wright's largest artwork to date, and will be completed for the opening of the 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival.

This year, to celebrate the National Gallery of Scotland’s 150th anniversary, we have collaborated with the Saturday Herald Magazine in asking a selection of well-known Scottish public figures to choose their favourite artwork in the Gallery’s collection.

We received enthusiastic responses from a wide variety of famous Scots, including Brian Cox, Michael Russell and Alison Watt.

You can enjoy an eTour of the top ten choices here.

The National Galleries of Scotland Art Competition for Schools 2010 is up and running ready for the start of the new school year.

Now in its seventh year, the competition this year is expected to be bigger than ever.  With categories for all school groups, from primary 1 to senior and special schools, and a group entry category, there is something for everyone.

Full details, teacher notes and images to inspire here.

A spectacular celebration of Spanish culture will bring some Mediterranean colour to Edinburgh this summer, as the National Gallery of Scotland unveils the highlight of its festival programme for 2009.  'The Discovery of Spain' will explore the fascination for Spanish art and culture in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain, with paintings by Velázquez, El Greco, Murillo and Zurbarán forming a dramatic centerpiece for the exhibition.

The work of major British artists, such as Sir David Wilkie, David Roberts, John Phillip and Arthur Melville, who were captivated by the experience of travelling through Spain, will also dominate the show.  

The exhibition can only be seen in Edinburgh, and will include over 130 paintings, watercolours, drawings, prints and photographs. 

The Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution Michael Russell has announced today the appointment of Ben Thomson as the new Chair of the Board of Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Ben Thomson is the Chairman of Edinburgh-based investment bank Noble Group which he joined in 1990, being Chief Executive from 1997 to 2007.

He is also Chairman of both children’s publisher Barrington Stoke and Reform Scotland, the non party aligned Scottish think tank.

To find out more visit the Scottish Government news website.

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and the National Galleries of Scotland are delighted to announce that the HLF has confirmed the £4.5m award to support Portrait of the Nation, the imaginative scheme to renovate and rejuvenate the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Scottish Government already announced its support in December 2007 with a grant for £5.1 million.

The HLF grant comes just as the gallery is about to close to the public in order to start the refurbishment process. Join us on 4th and 5th April for a celebratory weekend marking the temporary closure of the gallery as we begin our exciting and ambitious Portrait of the Nation project.

Judging is now complete for the 2009 Inspired? Get Writing! creative writing competition.  927 people submitted prose or poetry all inspired by works in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Hear the winning entries read aloud in front of the pieces that inspired them on Thursday 7 May 2009 in the Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, National Gallery Complex.

This is the fourth year of the competition which is a three-way partnership between National Galleries of Scotland, English Speaking Union and the Scottish Poetry Library.

The National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery, London are delighted to announce that Titian’s Diana and Actaeon has been acquired for the nation from the Duke of Sutherland.

The acquisition has been made possible with the generous contributions from private and public donations, Scottish Government, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, The Monument Trust, The Art Fund charity and National Gallery, London and National Galleries of Scotland funds.

The tour of ARTIST ROOMS, a unique scheme to bring one of the largest and most imaginative acquisitions of post-war and contemporary art to audiences across Britain, from Bill Viola in Stromness to Joseph Beuys in Bexhill on Sea, is launched today.

Throughout 2009, 18 museums and galleries across the UK will be showing over 30 ARTIST ROOMS from the collection created by the dealer and collector, Anthony d’Offay, and acquired by the nation in February 2008. This is the first time a national collection has been shared and shown simultaneously across the UK, and has only been made possible through the exceptional generosity of independent charity The Art Fund and, in Scotland, of the Scottish Government.

Find out more in the ARTIST ROOMS section of this website.

National Galleries of Scotland has launched a presence for some of the extraordinary works from the Scottish National Photography Collection on photograph sharing website Flickr.

The Commons, a section of the Flickr site whose aim is to bring together 'the hidden treasures in the world's public photography archives', has been live since 2008.  National Galleries of Scotland is now the 18th organisation to have launched a presence there, and the first Scottish organisation to do so.

There are currently just over 100 photographs from the Photography Collection available to view, ranging from portraits of Victorian Scots by Hill and Adamson to images of the Glasgow Exhibition of 1888, to views of fishermen at work on the banks of the Yangtze river in China.

More photographs will be made available over the coming months.

Select here to go to the National Galleries of Scotland's Flickr Commons page.

The National Galleries of Scotland is delighted to announce that the Trustees of Miss Agnes H Hunter’s Trust have decided to continue their support of the NGS Education Visual Impairment Programme for the next two years.  Provided for visitors with all levels of visual impairment, this programme provides specifically designed guided tours and workshops, led by trained educators.  Thanks to the Miss Agnes H Hunter’s Trust, which has funded this programme for the last two years, we can continue to provide these sessions free of charge until March 2010. 

If you would like to find out more about our Community Education Programme, please call Mary Kilpatrick, Community Education Officer, on 0131 624 6428.

Miss Agnes H Hunter's Trust is an Edinburgh-based charity funding activities in support of the blind in Scotland, those suffering physical or mental illness or disability, the education and training of disadvantaged people and those charities enquiring into the cause, relief or cure of arthritis, cancer or tuberculosis.

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Mr Herbert Coutts and the reappointment of Mr Charles James Dawnay to the Board of Trustees for the National Galleries of Scotland. Both appointments will be for a four-year term and will run from 1 August 2007 until 31 July 2011.

Herbert Coutts has served in senior local government cultural posts for more than forty years. For the final period of his career, Coutts directed the Capital’s Culture and Leisure Department.

James Dawnay is a member of the National Trust and The National Trust for Scotland. He has been a Director of London’s oldest established fine art consultancy, Gurr Johns, and holds Chairmanships and Directorships with various Trusts in the fields of arts and architecture, museums and finance. He is also a Director of a number of Investment Trust companies.

The National Galleries of Scotland Disability Equality Scheme and Action Plan is now available to view online.

The document aims to show how, through changing attitudes, the development of partnerships and increased expertise, the Galleries can continue to be proactive in recognising and removing the barriers which disabled people face in accessing the National Galleries of Scotland and its collections.

Four new members have joined the Board of Trustees for the National Galleries of Scotland this Spring. Richard Burns and James Knox joined the Board in February, replacing Giles Weaver and Valerie Atkinson. Additionally, Ray Macfarlane and Alasdair Morton joined the Board in March, replacing Gavin Gemmell and Ian McKenzie Smith. Details of all the Trustees can be found in the About Us section of the National Galleries website.