LONDON.-Discoveries: New Research into British Collections is an exciting new exhibition that provides the opportunity to discover some of the hidden treasures held in Britain’s public art collections. Discoveries coincides with the launch of a new online database offering the chance to explore nearly 8000 paintings in UK museums and galleries.

Discoveries will celebrate the work of the National Inventory Research Project (NIRP) – a groundbreaking research project designed to gather and present information about Britain's public art collections, based at the University of Glasgow, with Birkbeck College (University of London) and the National Gallery as partners. Researchers have gone into regional museums to shed new light on European paintings from 1200 to 1900 – uncovering a variety of stories, interpreting symbolism, suggesting attributions and enhancing understanding of a wide range of pictures. The exhibition features eight paintings, spanning 500 years, from institutions across the country. These important examples of the NIRP team’s findings highlight the success of the project, and show how the work has benefited museums and the public alike.

The exhibition will reveal some secret stories uncovered by the new research. The Victoria Art Gallery in Bath secured an attribution for its Death of Cleopatra by Benedetto Gennari – and learnt, in the process, that it had been owned by a notorious ‘ladies man’. A fierce revolutionary young woman in the Bowes Museum’s painting The Barricade at Port St Denis, 1848 emerged as a real historical figure, killed during the confrontation, rather than an allegorical personification. Buckinghamshire Art Gallery learnt that its Landscape through Architectural Setting (Courtyard at the Rubenshuis) might well be one of the earliest known images of the courtyard and studio of the home of the famous artist Rubens. And Falmouth Art Gallery found that one of its most popular exhibits, The Ark on Mount Ararat, has a close cousin in an Italian royal collection – an important work that was commissioned by Vittorio Emanuele II, first King of Italy.

The exhibition will coincide with the launch of the project’s online database of nearly 8000 paintings from over 200 UK museums and galleries, providing public access to information discovered as a result of the NIRP – information which has already resulted in many new collection displays and educational initiatives in the institutions involved. The website http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/collections/nirp.html will be made publicly accessible through the Arts and Humanities Data Service. There will also be a link to the database from the National Gallery’s website www.nationalgallery.org.uk. Visitors to Discoveries will have access to the database through a kiosk positioned in the exhibition space.