Sainsbury leaves £100m of art to Tate and National Gallery

Simon Sainsbury, the British philanthropist and art collector who died last year, left paintings worth up to £100m to the Tate and the National Gallery.

The Hon Simon Sainsbury Bequest has been called "one of the most important bequests to come to the nation in the past 100 years" and includes pieces by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Thomas Gainsborough, Paul Gauguin and Henri Rousseau. The works will be split between the two galleries and will be exhibited to the public at the Tate next June.

The Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota said the gift of 13 paintings to its gallery could not be underestimated in its significance to the existing collection, because it "transforms our ability to show a number of artists in depth".

"This is one of the most important gifts in the history of Tate," he said. "The sheer variety of works gifted will enhance many different areas of the Tate Collection. Simon was an incredibly sensitive and thoughtful person. He was interested in English landscapes, sporting pastimes; he had a great, profound sense of being English."

Pieces left to the Tate include three works by Freud, a rare early work by Bacon from 1952, of which, said Sir Nicholas, there is "no equivalent in the Tate's collection", Gainsborough's Mr and Mrs Carter, from 1747, which will be the earliest work by the artist to enter the collection, and three works by the French artist, Balthus.

Two pieces by the French painter, Pierre Bonnard, Nude in the Bath and The Yellow Boat, will make the gallery "one of the principle places to see Bonnard outside Paris".

Other works include the gallery's first "conversation piece" by the German neo-classical painter Johan Zoffany, noted for his portraits of prominent actors in the roles they played and a "masterpiece" by John Wootton, the English painter who specialised in sporting subjects.

The National Gallery will receive five Impressionist and post-Impressionist works, including Monet's Snow Scene at Argenteuil, the largest of the 18 snow scenes Monet painted at the town in the winter of 1874 to 1875. Another work by the painter, Water-Lilies, Setting Sun, depicts a corner of his water garden at Giverny with a reflection of a weeping willow.

Christopher Riopelle, curator of 19th and 20th century painting at the National Gallery, said this painting was likely to hold special significance for Monet, who painted it around 1907 but held on to it until 1923, when he sold it with eight other works to the French industrialist, Henri Canonne, who owned 40 Monets. But before parting with it, he wrote to his patron asking if he could keep this particular painting until he had had a cataract operation, scheduled for the following week, finally relinquishing it in January 1924. "After his operation, Monet wanted to study this painting, suggesting that this picture had a special place in his heart," said Mr Riopelle.

Other paintings heading for the National Gallery are Gauguin's Bowl of Fruit and Tankard Before a Window, Rousseau's Portrait of Joseph Brummer and Degas' After the Bath, said to feature among the "most colourful and visually complex" of the artist's female nudes.

Martin Wyld, acting director of the gallery, said the bequest by Sainsbury – a devoted trustee and guiding force in the completion of the Sainsbury Wing – was "truly remarkable". Sainsbury, who died from Parkinson's disease in September 2006, aged 76, left an estate worth £300m. He amassed an enviable collection of late 19th-century and early 20th-century international and British art, which he kept in his Sussex and Chelsea homes.

The grandson of John Sainsbury, he and his brothers Lord John and Sir Tim, funded the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing. He was also one of the first people to commit funds to Tate Modern and was hailed by Sir Nicholas as "a remarkably generous philanthropist".

The paintings were divided between the two galleries based on discussions between the institutions and Sainsbury. It is hoped that some of the bequests will travel to various regions in Britain, as Sainsbury was keen on displaying his works across the country.

The Tate has not had a bequest on a similar scale since the 1930s when Frank Stoop left work by Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani, that remain key Tate works. The National Gallery's most comparable bequest came in 1915, when Sir Hugh Lane left 39 paintings including works by Manet and Renoir.