Russia and the UK are embarking on an unprecedented cultural exchange whereby London's National Portrait Gallery and Moscow's State Tretyakov Gallery will swap some of their most precious portraits.

Marking the 160th anniversary of both museums, the State Tretyakov Gallery will send portraits of important Russian cultural figures—including Leo Tolstoy, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Modest Mussorgsky—to London, while the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) will send paintings of William Shakespeare, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Carlyle to Moscow.