In art, as in life, there are those who hog the limelight, and those who get on with the often thankless backstage graft that makes it all happen. Fittingly, The Art Fund (formerly The National Art Collections Fund) has been unassumingly putting on just such a show for the public since 1903. Founded with the aim of purchasing, on the public's behalf, treasures that otherwise might leave the UK or disappear into private collections, the charity has quietly secured over 850,000 works of art, among them Velazquez's 'Rokeby' Venus and Canova's The Three Graces.

This revealing 10-part series examines a small but representative selection of some of the works of art that the Fund has helped British museums and galleries to buy. The objects covered exemplify the Fund's diverse approach: Roman antiquities mingle with Iron Age treasure and Rodin's The Kiss, while Whistlers, Titians and Gainsboroughs rub shoulders with works by Picasso, Jeff Wall and Lucien Freud. Since the works are housed in galleries throughout the UK, this rare opportunity to see such an enormously rich collection together demonstrates the breadth, variety and sheer number of works that The Art Fund has saved for the nation which just goes to prove the adage that it's the quiet ones you have to watch.

Former Royal Ballet principal dancer; author; journalist; TV presenter and staunch patron of the arts: we thought Deborah Bull was perfectly placed to present Saved for the Nation.

Since her retirement as a principal from The Royal Ballet, Deborah Bull has done anything but put her feet up. She's a governor of the BBC; she's addressed the Oxford Union on the subject of national arts funding and she instigated a Royal Opera House aid scheme for independent companies and artists.

Join her plus a selection of prominent critics and artists including Joan Bakewell; Tate director Nicholas Serota; British Museum director Neil MacGregor; David Attenborough; Dinos Chapman, Tim Marlow and many more as she celebrates a hundred of the greatest treasures that The Art Fund has saved for the nation.


Episode 2: 1914-1924
Japanese
Japanese court sword (1682)
V&A
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1915

Masaccio (1401-1428)
The Virgin and Child (1426)
National Gallery, London
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1916

Greek
Greek Vase: Orestes pursued by the Furies (circa 340-330 BC)
British Museum
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1917

Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587)
The Last Letter of Mary, Queen of Scots (1587)
National Library of Scotland
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1918

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806)
Women on the Ryõgoku Bridge (1795-1796)
British Museum
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1918

Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896)
Christ in the House of his Parents ('The Carpenter's Shop') (1849-1850)
Tate
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1921

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (circa 1525-1569)
The Adoration of the Magi (1564)
National Gallery, London