Sainsbury Bequest Goes on Display at Tate

LONDON—The 18 paintings left by Simon Sainsbury to Tate Britain and the National Gallery have gone on view temporarily at the Tate. The gift, which the Guardian calls "one of the most sensational... since the foundation of the national museums," includes works by Thomas Gainsborough, Lucian Freud, Monet, Gauguin, and Degas. Many of them have rarely, if ever, been seen by the public in the last 50 years.

Sainsbury was the great-grandson of the founder of the J Sainsbury grocery chain and helped finance a wing of the National Gallery with his brothers John and Timothy. The 18 paintings he left to Britain are roughly estimated to be worth £100 million ($197 million). They are on display at the Tate until October 5, after which time they will enter the permanent collections there and at the National Gallery.