The financial industry was well-represented at the National Gallery in London last week for the launch of the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity set up to catalogue every oil painting in public hands in the UK – the vast majority of which are not on view to the public.

The charity is the brainchild of Fred Hohler, a former diplomat and City headhunter, who wants to publish a national series of illustrated catalogues and use the funds raised from that for restoring paintings and putting them on show.