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 6: 1954-1964

Diego Velazquez (1599-1660)
An Old Woman Cooking Eggs (1618)
National Galleries of Scotland
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1955.

French
Statutes of the Order of St Michael (1551)
John Rylands Library
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1955.

John Constable (1776-1837)
Golding Constable's Flower Garden (1815)
Christchurch Mansion
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1955.

Syrian
Goblet ('The Luck of Edenhall') (circa 1355)
V&A
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1958.

Nicholas Hilliard (1547 1618)
Miniature portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh (circa 1581-1584)
National Portrait Gallery
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1959.

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)
Mr and Mrs Andrews (1748-1749)
National Gallery, London
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1960.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist (circa 1499-1500)
National Gallery, London
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1962.

Musa (active 1480/1481)
Spherical Astrolabe (1480-1481)
Museum of the History of Science, Oxford
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1962.

Frans Hals (1580-1666)
Portrait of a Young Woman (circa 1655-1660)
Ferens Art Gallery
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1963.

Rembrandt (1606-1669)
Belshazzar's Feast (circa 1636)
National Gallery, London
Acquired with Art Fund help in 1964.