VIEWS of Bath through the centuries will be on show at Bath & North East Somerset Council's Victoria Art Gallery from Friday April 7.

The exhibition, including Turner's famous watercolour of Bath Abbey, pictured right, will be the first to be installed in the gallery's new glass-topped cabinets, funded by the Lutz Haber Bequest.

The 84 glass-topped drawers will show rotating displays from the gallery's extensive collection of drawings, watercolours and prints. Jon Benington, manager of the Victoria Art Gallery, said, "The new cabinets enable us to display many more pictures than we would normally be able to accommodate if they were wall-hung.

"Over 100 of them can be seen at any one time, so if you are a Bath resident you are likely to find something that is literally right up your street. "They can also be used to show watercolours that cannot be on permanent display because of the need to view them at low light levels. "The displays will be changed every six months to bring new works into view. The next change is due in October."

The new cabinets were made in Italy and cost £14,500. They were funded from a generous bequest of £20,000 from the late Dr Lutz Haber, a Bath resident and historian. The remainder of the bequest, together with additional funding from the council, will be spent on phase two of the project, putting the Images of Bath collection on line and available via a touchscreen in the gallery.

This is expected to be completed by April 2007. Cllr Nicole O'Flaherty, executive member for tourism, leisure and culture, said: "Thanks to the generosity of local historian Lutz Haber, Bath & North East Somerset Council has been able to provide these excellent cabinets."