This paper considers the arrival on British soil and public display of a group of works purchased by Fox Strangways in Florence in the late 1820s. Bequeathed to Oxford University in 1850, it was the first collection of paintings by 'Primitive' artists to be shown to the public in England, and makes the University Galleries, whose origin and construction is here under examination, an interesting case study. Thanks to the correspondence between Fox Strangways and the University and contemporary texts by Gustav Waagen, we can reconstruct the events that led to the donation. An in-depth analysis of the many Handbooks that were printed during that period also provides an insight into the museographic layout of the gallery and the arrangement of the paintings on the walls, which is digitally reconstructed here. Finally, the paper offers an overview of the public perception of the bequest: the didactic purpose of the collection – exhibited in Oxford during the very years in which John Ruskin was holding his famous lectures there – is investigated, and an assessment is made of the role it must have played for the academic community in Oxford up to the early 1870s.