National Gallery of Art

National Gallery of Art, art museum, in Washington, D.C. Although originally designated as a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art is an autonomous and separately-administered organization. Established in 1937 by a Joint Resolution of the Congress of the United States and a gift of funds and works of art by the American financier and statesman Andrew W. Mellon, the gallery houses one of the world's finest collections of Western European and American art from the 13th through the 20th century. Today the gallery's collection includes more than 91,000 works of art, including many masterpieces, such as Ginevra de' Benci, the only painting by the Italian master Leonardo da Vinci housed in the western hemisphere, and Family of Saltimbanques by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.