| Summary: | This article introduces the curatorial practice of Sir Frederic Burton, the third director of the National Gallery, London. By assessing his methods and priorities when making acquisitions it considers the individual character of his directorship and the manner in which he was following the mandates of the 1853 Select Committee. Drawing upon a wealth of correspondence, the article examines the influence of his network of art-world contacts including his trustees, the art-historian Giovanni Morelli, and the artist and dealer Charles Fairfax Murray. These themes are contextualised within the intense debate surrounding the role of art-historical expertise within the museum that emerged towards the end of Burton’s tenure and which resulted in the curtailing of the authority of the directorship with the Rosebery Minute issued just after his retirement in 1894.
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