 The agricultural crisis at the turn of the 20th century caused many aristocratic families to sell their paintings , but the British national collections were priced out of the market by American plutocrats . This prompted the foundation of the National Art Collections Fund , a society of subscribers dedicated to stemming the flow of artworks to the United States . Their first acquisition for the National Gallery was Velázquez 's Rokeby Venus in 1906 , followed by Holbein 's Portrait of Christina of Denmark in 1909 . However , despite the crisis in aristocratic fortunes , the following decade was one of several great bequests from private collectors . In 1909 the industrialist Dr Ludwig Mond gave 42 Italian renaissance paintings , including the Mond Crucifixion by Raphael , to the Gallery . Other bequests of note were those of George Salting in 1910 , Austen Henry Layard in 1916 and Sir Hugh Lane in 1917 ; the last of these was one of the Gallery 's more controversial bequests . 
