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If you’re seriously into art then the Courtauld is right up there with the National Gallery. When you walk into Somerset House from the Strand there’s usually some tables laid out by the dancing fountains where you can have a cup of tea before you go in.
Blavatnik Fine Rooms
The decor in the Blavatnik Fine Rooms is almost as beautiful as the artworks with huge marbles fireplaces, decorated ceilings and paintings from the Renaissance up to the end with the 18th-century.
The Peter Paul Rubens room has his oil sketch for The Descent From The Cross and another one has Cranach’s Adam And Eve and Pieter Bruegel’s Landscape With A Flight Into Egypt.
Then comes the best room in the building with two huge marriage chests and Sandro Botticelli’s The Trinity With Saints Mary Magdalen And St John The Baptist.
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LVMH Great Room
This is where you’ll find all the French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. It’s also where you’ll find thirty thousand tourists all crowding round Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear (I exaggerate slightly, but not by much). When Gauguin packed his bags to leave their rented house in Arles Vincent threatened him with a razor blade and sliced off his own ear. (He sounds like the world’s worst roommate – I think I would have moved out too!)
Another painting that everyone will recognise is Manet’s A Bar At The Folies Bergère. In real-life it was more of a salacious nightclub and that barmaid was offering a lot more than drinks. I always think she looks too grand for that but I suppose you don’t wear black velvet and lace to serve bottles of beer and crisps.
Also on display are eight works by Cézanne, a couple of landscapes by Monet, two of Gauguin’s Tahitian pieces, a famous ballet scene by Edgar Degas, and some of Seurat’s spots and dots.
Immediately after that comes a room full of 20th-century art and you wonder if you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. The Tate can get away with showing all of these squiggles and splats and spots and blobs, but when you’ve just seen three floors of Ruben’s, Renoir’s and Vincent Van Gogh’s then a room full of lines and triangles just doesn’t compete.
I also recommend… If you enjoy this then try National Gallery (walk it in 12 mins or catch a tube from Temple to Charing Cross); Royal Academy of Arts (walk it in 20 mins or travel from Temple to Piccadilly Circus by underground); Tate Britain (walk it in 30 mins or travel from Temple to Pimlico by underground); Victoria & Albert Museum (take a tube journey from Temple to South Kensington) and Wallace Collection (travel from Temple to Bond Street by tube)
How to get to the Courtauld Gallery
| Fare zone | Cash | Oyster & Contactless | Travelcard | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single fare | Single fare | Daily cap | One day | ||||
| Peak | Off-peak | Peak | Off-peak | Anytime | Off-peak | ||
| Bus (all zones) | n/a | £1.75 | £5.25 | £6 | |||
| Train (zone 1) | £7 | £2.90 | £2.80 | £8.90 | £8.90 | £16.60(zone 1-4) | £16.60(zone 1-6) |
| Train (zone 1-2) | £7 | £3.50 | £2.90 | £8.90 | £8.90 | ||
| Train (zone 1-3) | £7 | £3.80 | £3.10 | £10.50 | £10.50 | ||
| Train (zone 1-4) | £7 | £4.60 | £3.40 | £12.80 | £12.80 | ||
| Train (zone 1-5) | £7 | £5.20 | £3.60 | £15.30 | £15.30 | £23.60(zone 1-6) | |
| Train (zone 1-6) | £7 | £5.80* | £3.80* | £16.30 | £16.30 | ||
| * Journeys between zone 1 and Heathrow are always charged at the peak rate. Prices are correct as of | |||||||
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