TY - JOUR AB - My chosen work of art for the Gallery section of Professor Hilary Fraser’s Festschrift is the National Gallery’s second oldest painting, Margarito d’Arezzo’s <i>Virgin and Child Enthroned</i> of the 1260s and the debates it aroused when the inaugural director Sir Charles Eastlake bought it in 1857 as part of his revolutionary introduction of early Italian art into the national painting collection, much of which was seen as not at the time at all beautiful — ‘unsightly’ to use his own phrase. This warranted him explaining in the first annual report that such art was acquired not for its aesthetic merit but on the grounds of its historic importance. The article will examine the expanding public role of the National Gallery in terms of educating the widest possible public about the history of Western European painting in addition to offering what were deemed to be suitable teaching aids to encourage the native school of painters. It will also shine a light on various women who have played significant roles in promoting interest in and knowledge about early Italian art, including Margarito’s panel, in the National Gallery’s collection.<br> AU - Susanna Avery-Quash DA - 2023/3// DO - 10.16995/ntn.8625 IS - 34 VL - 2023 PB - Open Library of Humanities PY - 2023 TI - Margarito d’Arezzo’s <i>Virgin and Child Enthroned</i>: Victorian Beauty Under Attack? T2 - 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century UR - http://19.bbk.ac.uk/article/id/8625/ ER -