 Christian was obliged to match the Greek Classical style of the National Gallery (built in 1838 by William Wilkins 1778–1839), which was set immediately to the south of the NPG site and adjoined it on its east side, but he provided a strikingly original design for his main north block towards Charing Cross Road based on the style of a Florentine Renaissance palazzo.The first floor for this block has large round-arched windows which bear portrait busts in roundels of famous painters, sculptors, antiquarians and historians, including Hans Holbein, Sir Peter Lely, Sir Anthony van Dyck, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Thomas Lawrence, William Hogarth, Louis Francois Roubiliac, Sir Francis Chantrey and Horace Walpole.The impressive pedimented entrance block is richly treated with more portrait busts in roundels, which include that for the 5th Earl Stanhope (1805–75) whose campaign in parliament had led to the NPG's foundation in 1856 (the Gallery first opened in a Georgian house in Great George Street, Westminster, in 1859).