 In Great Britain, however, the corresponding Royal Collection remained in the private hands of the monarch and the first purpose-built national art galleries were the Dulwich Picture Gallery, founded in 1814 and the National Gallery, London opened to the public a decade later in 1824.Similarly, the National Gallery in Prague was not formed by opening an existing royal or princely art collection to the public but was created from scratch as a joint project of some Czech aristocrats in 1796.The Corcoran Gallery of Art is generally considered to have been the first art museum in the United States.