Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Simon Sainsbury, the British philanthropist who died last year, bequeathed 18 paintings to the nation worth between 70 and 100 million pounds ($144 million to $206 million) in one of the largest such gifts in the last century, the Tate and National Gallery announced today.

Five works by Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet and Henri Rousseau will go to the National Gallery. Tate will get 13 others by Francis Bacon, Balthus, Pierre Bonnard, Lucian Freud, Thomas Gainsborough, Victor Pasmore, John Wootton and Johann Zoffany. All of the 18 works will be exhibited at Tate Britain next summer.

``He had a very good eye,'' Tate Director Nicholas Serota told reporters at Tate Britain, moments after posing for photos before three of the paintings. ``He sought to bring pictures into the national collections that would really register'' and ``dovetail with the museums' own collections.''

Sainsbury was a member of the family that founded the J. Sainsbury Plc supermarket chain. He joined the business in 1956 and later helped create the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, which opened to the public in 1991.

``These outstanding paintings will greatly enrich our impressionist and post-impressionist collection,'' the National Gallery's acting director, Martin Wyld, said in a statement issued before the press conference. Sainsbury, he said, was ``both a devoted trustee and a guiding force in the successful completion of the Sainsbury Wing.''

Monet's Snow

Two works by Monet will join the 12 already in the National Gallery: ``Snow Scene at Argenteuil'' (1875), the largest of 17 scenes painted during a particularly snowy winter spent in the town outside Paris; and ``Water Lilies, Setting Sun'' (1907), a view of his water garden at Giverny which the impressionist master reluctantly parted with after its sale in 1923 to an industrialist, according to Christopher Riopelle, curator of 19th- century painting at the National Gallery.

Also heading to the National Gallery is Henri Rousseau's monumental 1909 ``Portrait of Joseph Brummer,'' which shows the Hungarian art dealer posing grandly before a lush backdrop of jungle and shrubbery.

Of the paintings destined for the Tate, Bonnard's ``Nude in the Bath'' of 1925 is one of the earliest of the artist's signature depictions of his bathing wife. It, and a second Bonnard given, will make Tate ``one of the principal places to see Bonnard outside of Paris,'' Serota said.

Three paintings by Balthus will join the one currently in Tate's collection and allow Tate Modern to dedicate one of its rooms to Balthus, Serota said.

Bacon's ``Study for a Portrait'' (1952), a howling, long- faced figure in a suit, belongs to the period running up to the screaming pope series, a period that isn't represented in Tate's collections, Serota said.

The three works by Freud include his tiny ``Boy Smoking'' of 1950-1.

To contact the reporters on this story: Farah Nayeri in London at farahn@bloomberg.net and Mark Beech in London at mbeech@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 29, 2007 09:32 EDT