 A plan to acquire 150 paintings from the Orléans collection , which had been brought to London for sale in 1798 , also failed , despite the interest of both the King and the Prime Minister , Pitt the Younger . The twenty @-@ five paintings from that collection now in the Gallery , including " <unk> " , have arrived by a variety of routes . In 1799 the dealer Noel <unk> offered a ready @-@ made national collection to the British government ; he and his partner Sir Francis Bourgeois had assembled it for the king of Poland , before the Third Partition in 1795 abolished Polish independence . This offer was declined and Bourgeois bequeathed the collection to his old school , Dulwich College , on his death . The collection opened in Britain 's first purpose @-@ built public gallery , the Dulwich Picture Gallery , in 1814 . The Scottish dealer William Buchanan and another collector , Joseph Count Truchsess , both formed art collections expressly as the basis for a future national collection , but their respective offers ( made in the same year , 1803 ) were also declined . 
