Datasets:
id stringlengths 19 19 | long_text stringlengths 185 8.49k | short_text stringlengths 273 7.04k | style listlengths 1 4 | labels_text listlengths 1 4 | labels listlengths 23 23 | licenses dict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0D4D-0001-0000-0000 | An elderly man, barefoot and with an impressive grey beard, is perched on a rock, engrossed in a book. This is Saint Jerome, translator of the Bible into Latin. His only companion is an endearing lion which lies peaceably in the corner -- he had tamed it by removing a thorn from its paw.
Saint Jerome was a favourite of the religious orders as a role model for living an ascetic life -- he renounced worldly riches and pleasure -- and also of humanist scholars for his study of the Bible. He was widely depicted in northern Italian art, from Pisanello on. Sometimes he kneels in penitence for his sins, as in Cima da Conegliano's Saint Jerome in a Landscape; sometimes he is in the act of translation, as in Antonello's Saint Jerome in his Study.
Giovanni Bellini painted this subject several times during his career. He was catering for the Venetian art market, and devotional panels which shared some of the qualities of early Netherlandish paintings were especially valued; Bellini developed a genre of religious paintings which took their meaning from the use of landscape and light. In all his images of Saint Jerome, the setting seems as much the subject as the saint. Cliffs tower around him and exemplify his isolation in the wilderness, cut off by rocks and water from civilisation, represented by the walled city behind.
The figure of the saint and parts of the rocky outcrop appear in a much larger painting, probably a small altarpiece (Uffizi, Florence). As they are very different in scale, the design can't have been transferred mechanically from one to the other. Infrared reflectography has shown that Bellini made his usual highly detailed underdrawings. The only pentimento in this carefully planned painting is the lion tucked into the lower right corner over the complete rocks; it adds a lively, humorous touch. It was not drawn from life, but is probably derived from many such beasts in the notebooks of his father, Jacopo Bellini.
The composition is carefully and geometrically structured. The saint's body, from his bent and brightly lit right arm to his feet, forms a curve around the book balanced on his knee, cutting him off from the landscape and emphasising his absorption in the text. The diagonal line of his upper arm and shoulder are echoed by the rocky outcrop behind him, which itself pushes the city further into the distance. The line of his right arm is continued by the city walls and the top of the cliff, and other diagonals are formed by the book and the fissures in the cliff face. The movement from lower left to upper right is brought to an abrupt halt by the barren tree which juts out in the opposite direction, echoing the line of the saint's left leg. A bright light, shining from the left, falls on Saint Jerome, his book and the foreground cliffs, and on the towers of the distant city; the landscape between them is plunged in shadow.
Recent technical study has confirmed that the painting is by Bellini. Saint Jerome's head is depicted with great attention to detail, the paint applied quickly and loosely using a fine-pointed brush: look closely and you can see the brushstrokes in Jerome's hair and beard. The illusionistic detail of the distant roofs and towers, which have also been rapidly painted, can be seen in Bellini's other works, such as The Agony in the Garden. | An elderly man, barefoot and with an impressive grey beard, is perched on a rock, engrossed in a book. This is Saint Jerome, translator of the Bible into Latin. His only companion is an endearing lion which lies peaceably in the corner -- he had tamed it by removing a thorn from its paw.
Bellini painted this subject several times, always using landscape and dramatic lighting to convey meaning. Cliffs tower around Jerome, cutting him off from civilisation (represented by the walled city in the background). A bright light falls on the saint and on the distant towers, but the landscape between them is plunged in shadow.
Recent technical study has confirmed that the painting is by Bellini himself, rather than a follower. Jerome's head is painted with great attention to detail, and if you look closely you can see the individual brushstrokes in his hair and beard. | [
"early Renaissance"
] | [
"Early Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FD4-0001-0000-0000 | The events following the destruction of the sinful city of Sodom, from which Lot and his daughters are here shown fleeing, are recounted in the Old Testament (Genesis 19: 30--38). Forewarned of the city's demise by God, the trio escaped to the mountain town of Zoar. We see them in a moment of conversation, perhaps contemplating their next move -- the daughter on the right raises her right index finger, while her father opens his palm, as if in response, and his other daughter looks on.
Conspicuously absent from Reni's composition are narrative details typically associated with the subject and common in other seventeenth-century depictions of it: Sodom burning in the background, for example, or Lot's wife as a pillar of salt (her punishment for disobeying instructions not to look back at the doomed city). Later in the biblical account, the daughters ply their father with alcohol and seduce him, in order to ensure the survival of their family line.
This subject enjoyed renewed popularity in Europe after the Council of Trent, not least because it provided a just, moral context in which to illustrate a social taboo. While many artists seized this as an opportunity to paint a scene rife with eroticism and nudity, Reni deviated from such tradition by illustrating the family as fully clothed, sober and chaste. The monumental figure of Lot in the centre of the composition is not that of a helpless, drunken, old man, but rather a powerful patriarchal figure. The large antique vase held by the daughter on the left, probably filled with wine, and the drapery gathered around the other daughter's midriff, which makes her appear pregnant, may serve as subtle indicators of the events that were soon to follow.
This painting was made around the time of Reni's celebrated Aurora fresco in Rome, where he lived and worked for more than a decade; the statuesque figures and solid handling of paint are illustrative of the style that he had developed there. The saturated, opaque colours and dark, nondescript background, life-size figures and half-length format may show the influence of Caravaggio, whose style Reni experimented with in the first decade of the seventeenth century. However, the porcelain-like classical features of the daughters are far from stark naturalism introduced by Caravaggio, as are the pale pastel tones in the drapery of the daughter on the right -- colours which would come to dominate Reni's paintings in the decades that followed.
Since the mid-seventeenth century, this painting has been regarded as a companion piece to Susannah and the Elders. Though similar in format and both illustrating moralising tales, the two pictures were painted several years apart, and were not originally intended as a pair. This work is first recorded in the Palazzo Lancellotti, Rome, in 1640, where it hung alongside Susannah and the Elders until the paintings were respectively acquired by the National Gallery in 1844. Its earlier history is unknown. | Lot and his daughters are shown fleeing the sinful city of Sodom, forewarned by God of its destruction (Genesis 19). The family are in a moment of conversation, perhaps contemplating their next move. Conspicuously absent are details typically associated with the subject, such as Sodom burning in the background or elements of eroticism, alluding to the daughters' later seduction of their father (an attempt to continue their family's bloodline). Instead, the trio are fully clothed, sober and chaste.
This painting was made around the time of Reni's celebrated Aurora fresco in Rome, where he lived and worked for more than a decade; the statuesque figures and solid handling of paint are illustrative of the style that he had developed there. Since the mid-seventeenth century, this painting has been regarded as a companion piece to Susannah and the Elders (also in the National Gallery's collection). Though similar in format and both illustrating moralising tales, the two were painted a few years apart, and were not originally intended as a pair. | [
"Caravaggist",
"academic"
] | [
"Caravaggist",
"Academic"
] | [
1,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0CP2-0001-0000-0000 | This small portrait is puzzling in many ways. We don't know who this man was or why he is holding a scroll, which is -- rather strangely -- inscribed on the outside. The painting's tall, narrow shape is unusual and there are mysterious inscriptions on the large, cracked stone parapet which runs along the front.
At the bottom is van Eyck's signature in abbreviated Latin: Actu[m] an[n]o d[omi]ni 1432 10 die octobris a ioh[anne] de Eyck ('done on 10 October 1432 by Jan van Eyck'). Van Eyck often dated his paintings to a single day, although they would have taken much longer to complete; perhaps this was they day on which it was finished. Above this are large capitals, apparently carved into the stone, reading 'LEAL SOVVENIR' ('Loyal Remembrance'), the words divided by a deep crack in the stone. This is the only French inscription on a surviving picture by van Eyck. It might mean that the picture is a good likeness, or that it was meant to be a keepsake. It is possible that it was painted after the sitter's death, in which case the crumbling parapet might be an allusion to man's mortality.
At the top of the parapet, carefully centred, is a small white inscription in Greek letters. There are two words, written in Greek, the last letter disappearing into a chip in the stone. Van Eyck often used the Greek alphabet to spell out words in Latin or Dutch. Here it is Latin: TUM OTHEOS ('then God'). What this means is unclear.
Even the phrasing of van Eyck's signature is unusual, and is reminiscent of the wording of a legal document. The scroll in the sitter's hand looks like a legal deed, although it is rolled inside out so the writing is on the outside. Could he have been a lawyer? He is dressed as a prosperous member of the middle class, in a dark green chaperon, fashionable fifteenth-century male headgear which van Eyck showed in several portraits (for example Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)). Its short hood falls over his left shoulder, and the long scarf-like cornette hangs down by his right. His red houpelande -- a long-sleeved robe worn by both men and women -- is trimmed with brown fur and fastened at the neck with two small buttons.
Van Eyck often put his sitters' names on the frames of their portraits, but this has been lost and the panel has been trimmed down almost to the edge of the paint. The back was marbled but this is now very damaged. Paintings were not always hung on walls in the fifteenth century, as is usual now, and the backs were sometimes decorated too as they could be seen. | This small portrait is puzzling in many ways. We don't know who this man was or why he is holding a scroll, which is -- rather strangely -- inscribed on the outside. The painting's tall, narrow shape is unusual and there are mysterious inscriptions carved into the very large, cracked stone parapet which runs across the front.
At the bottom is van Eyck's signature in Latin, and the date of 10 October 1432. Above this are large capitals apparently carved into the stone: LEAL SOVVENIR ('Loyal Remembrance' in French). At the top is a small Latin inscription written in Greek letters: TUM OTHEOS ('then God'). What this means is unclear.
It is possible that it was painted after the sitter's death, in which case the crumbling parapet might be an allusion to man's mortality. His name might have been on the lost frame. | [
"Gothic",
"early Renaissance"
] | [
"Gothic",
"Early Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0EWH-0001-0000-0000 | These two small paintings are part of a group of four scenes, which are painted on two poplar panels. They would once have decorated a piece of furniture, perhaps the case of a musical instrument. The black borders separating the two scenes on each panel appear to be original and must relate to how they were framed.
The paintings illustrate key scenes from Tebaldeo's Eclogues, which were poems first printed in Modena in 1498. The poems were very popular and were reprinted several times before 1520. The first and third scenes are represented on this panel: Damon broods on his Unrequited Love and Damon takes his Life.
In the first scene we see the young shepherd, Damon, with his flock in a mountainous landscape. He sits on the ground with his head in his hand. He has stopped playing his lyre and ignores his sheep. The large dense tree on the left and hill on the right form screens between which we catch a glimpse of a distant vista of mountains and sky. There are several buildings in the landscape, including a distinctive steep-roofed structure on the hill that is similar to one in The Virgin and Child with a Tonsured Supplicant and Saint Catherine by Previtali.
In the second scene, Thyrsis asks Damon the Cause of his Sorrow (on the other panel), Thyrsis asks Damon why he is so unhappy. Damon says he prefers to be alone 'among thorns and brambles in a remote and dismal place.' He determines to kill himself, lamenting the fate of his flock, which wolves are watching. He breaks his lyre on a stone and utters his last words: 'Alas, where I am I cannot now tell! / Shadows lengthen before night falls: / Amaryllis, I forgive you: Amaryllis, farewell.'
In the third scene, Damon is in a rugged, desolate landscape with a lake or shore in the middle distance. Previtali has depicted the moment when he plunges the dagger into his chest. A stream of blood pours from the wound, while his lyre lies broken at his feet. The final scene, Thyrsis finds the Body of Damon, is on the other panel. | These two small paintings are part of a group of four scenes, which are painted on two wooden panels. They would once have decorated a piece of furniture, perhaps the case of a musical instrument. They illustrate key scenes from Tebaldeo's popular Second Eclogue, first printed in Modena in 1498. The first and third scenes are represented on this panel: Damon broods on his Unrequited Love and Damon takes his Life.
In the first scene the young shepherd, Damon, sits on the ground with his head in his hand, thinking about his unrequited love for Amaryllis. He has stopped playing his lyre and ignores his flock of sheep. In the third scene, Damon is in a rugged, desolate landscape with a lake or shore in the middle distance. We see the moment he plunges the dagger into his chest in despair. A stream of blood pours from the wound, while his lyre lies broken at his feet. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0EHL-0001-0000-0000 | This small picture shows two episodes from the life of Saint Jerome. At the front, the saint sits under a lean-to shelter, built against a natural rock arch in a dramatic landscape, and removes a large thorn from a lion's paw. According to the Golden Legend, Saint Jerome met and healed an injured lion which then remained with him in the wilderness and after his return to monastic life. They are depicted together in the wilderness in Bellini's Saint Jerome reading in a Landscape.
The arch leads to another rock, topped with buildings that are accessible only by a track of planks supported on posts; a man and his dog make their way up it. This is the monastery near Bethlehem where Jerome lived (the red objects hanging from the church tower could be nesting boxes for birds). On the grassy platform in front of the monastery a man dressed as a cardinal addresses two merchants. Their camels carry barrels, probably containing oil, and large greyish packs; a donkey grazes behind them. This figure is also Saint Jerome -- he was often shown as a cardinal as he had been secretary to the pope. The Golden Legend tells how the lion guarded the donkey that carried firewood for the monastery, and when passing merchants stole the animal the lion recovered it. The merchants came to the monastery to ask Jerome's forgiveness and gave him oil.
This picture has been cut down on the right; the strip of wood along the edge was created by scraping away the paint and ground to match the other unpainted edges. It originally looked very like a version of the subject in the Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, which includes other incidents from the story. There are variants of the scene in the Prado, Madrid, in the Louvre, Paris and elsewhere, some closer to our painting than others. It seems impossible to work out the exact stages by which the composition evolved. The Prado painting is signed by Joachim Patinir and it's possible that all of them were being worked on at much the same time in his workshop, probably before 1518. Ideas tried out in one painting were sometimes taken up in another or others. | This small picture shows two episodes from the life of Saint Jerome. At the front, the saint sits under a lean-to shelter and removes a large thorn from a lion's paw. In gratitude the lion remained with him in the wilderness and after he went back to monastic life. On a rocky platform behind, the saint appears again, dressed as a cardinal, with two men leading camels and a donkey. The men are merchants who stole the monastery's donkey; the lion recovered it.
The painting has been cut down on the right. It originally looked like a painting in Wuppertal (Von der Heydt Museum) which includes other incidents from the story. There are several variants of this subject, one of which, now in the Prado, Madrid, is signed by Joachim Patinir. It is possible that all were being worked on at much the same time in his workshop. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0E5I-0001-0000-0000 | Joseph-Hyacinthe-François de Paule de Rigaud, comte de Vaudreuil (1740--1817), was only eighteen when this imposing portrait was painted by Drouais in 1758. He was the son of the governor and commander-general of Saint-Domingue, at that time a French colony on the western end of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which is why he points to it on a map. Without lifting a finger, the count earned substantial income from enslaved labour on its plantations.
Vaudreuil was in France by 1757, having left Saint-Domingue (his father ceased to be governor the same year). When his portrait was painted, he was a junior army officer and had already been at the Battle of Rossbach (5 November 1757) in Saxony during the Seven Years War, when the French had suffered a disastrous defeat by the Prussians. Although he is not in uniform, the armour at the bottom right of the painting and the map, titled (in French) ‘the German Empire,’ behind his head allude to his military service. The reference to Germany was not just personal but also contained a political message: by turning his back on the map of Germany and partially covering it with a map of the Caribbean showing Saint-Domingue, Vaudreuil asserts the importance of the colony for French interests and its importance relative to continental Europe. The fall of Guadeloupe to the British on 1 May 1759, just weeks before the opening of the Salon, where the portrait may have been exhibited, would have made this message even more pointed.
Instead of his uniform, Vaudreuil wears a blue velvet coat lined with squirrel fur and a brocade waistcoat with festoons of gold and silver lace. His wig is tied in place by a black silk ribbon fastened in a bow at the neck. The red heels on his shoes indicate his aristocratic status. Behind him is a giltwood Louis XV chair covered with red damask on which he has placed his black tricorne hat and leather gloves. This meticulous attention to detail, especially the depiction of luxurious fabrics, was typical of Drouais’s style and can be seen in his portrait of Madame de Pompadour. Drouais’s idealising portraits, which often flattered his sitters, were hugely popular with the French elite. Although still only a young man and hardly in need of flattery, the count has a flawless complexion with rosy cheeks and lips and large bright eyes. Despite Vaudreuil’s status, the portrait has an air of informality and, rather than military stiffness, his long slender body has a slight tilt.
The count continued his military career while also amassing great wealth through inheritance and from his sugar cane plantations at Saint-Domingue. A collector and patron of the arts, he was a close friend of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, who claimed he had ‘every quality and grace which can render a man attractive.’ Vaudreuil was part of the circle around Queen Marie Antoinette and, like many aristocrats, fled France within days of the fall of the Bastille in July 1789, at the start of the French Revolution. With the restoration of the French monarchy in 1814, he returned to France, where he died in 1817. In 1791 a rebellion by its enslaved population broke out on Saint-Domingue. The new French Republic abolished slavery in its colonies in 1794, although it was temporarily restored by Napoleon in 1802. The French finally withdrew in late 1803 and the following year western Hispaniola declared independence as Haiti, its indigenous name. | In this imposing portrait, designed to emphasis its sitter’s wealth and status, the eighteen-year-old comte de Vaudreuil (1740–1817) points at a map of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). His father was governor of the island, then a French colony, and the count earned substantial income from enslaved labour on its plantations.
Vaudreuil was a junior army officer, but instead of his uniform he wears a blue velvet coat lined with squirrel fur and a brocade waistcoat with festoons of gold and silver lace. His wig is tied in place by a black silk ribbon fastened in a bow at the neck. The red heels on his shoes indicate his aristocratic status. Drouais’s idealising portraits often flattered his sitters. Although still only a young man and hardly in need of flattery, the count has a flawless complexion with rosy cheeks and lips and large, bright eyes. The portrait has an air of informality and, rather than military stiffness, Vaudreuil's long slender body has a slight tilt. | [
"rococo",
"neoclassical"
] | [
"Rococo",
"Neoclassical"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F79-0001-0000-0000 | A company of richly dressed saints, many with impressive beards, gaze adoringly at something on their right, or turn to talk to each other. This panel was part of a large polyptych painted by Lorenzo Monaco for the monastery of San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti in Florence.
They are looking at The Coronation of the Virgin; you can see -- on the far left -- parts of the wings of angels who sit around the throne. Other parts of the altarpiece are in our collection and in collections around the world. Arranged in three tiers, the saints are carefully structured so that their gestures and colours balance and echo those in Adoring Saints: Left Main Tier Panel, giving the whole polyptych an almost musical harmony.
San Benedetto belonged to Camaldolese Order, a small reformed monastic order founded by an Italian monk, Saint Romuald, in 1012. Although they followed the Rule of Saint Benedict, Saint Romuald wanted them to live a stricter and more solitary life. They lived in individual cells, like hermits, although they came together to eat and pray.
The saints here were well known to the monks at San Benedetto. At the front, in the white habit of the Camaldolites, is Saint Romuald, the Order's founder. Next to him is Saint Peter, the first pope, dressed in yellow and blue and holding a large key -- the key to heaven, given to him by Christ. Both Peter and Romuald appear on another altarpiece for the Order, made for the nuns at Pratovecchio.
At the very back, wearing the white and gold papal tiara, is Pope Gregory the Great, the sixth-century Benedictine who wrote the Life of Saint Benedict; the dove of the Holy Ghost is whispering in his ear to inspire him. Beside him is Saint Dominic, the pair to Saint Francis in the other wing, and founder of the Dominican Order.
In places the paint has worn thin and we can see traces of underdrawing in the yellow of Saint Peter's robe and the pink of John the Evangelist's next to him. Technical analysis has identified kermes, a pigment widely used in manuscript illumination, in Saint John's robe; Lorenzo Monaco also painted books. | A company of richly dressed saints, their gilded haloes stamped with elaborate patterns, gaze at something on their right, or turn to talk to each other. This painting is part of a large multi-panelled altarpiece made for the Camaldolite monastery of San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti in Florence and they are looking at an image of the coronation of the Virgin (also in the National Gallery's collection). Arranged in three tiers, they are carefully structured so that their gestures and colours balance and echo those in the facing panel, giving the whole altarpiece an almost musical harmony.
The saints here would have been well known to the monks of San Benedetto. At the very front is Saint Romuald, founder of the Camaldolese Order, wearing the white habit of the Camaldolites. Next to him, dressed in yellow and blue and holding a large key, is Saint Peter, the first pope and founder of the Catholic Church. | [
"Gothic",
"early Renaissance"
] | [
"Gothic",
"Early Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F9D-0001-0000-0000 | A great throng of retainers and animals accompany the Three Kings to pay homage to the infant Christ. Reclining among angels in the heavens, God the Father blesses all those below.
Fragments of a ruined classical building -- perhaps a city gate or triumphal arch -- are scattered in the foreground, and the Virgin Mary sits on the upside-down capital of a column. Ruined classical architecture is often included in Renaissance paintings of the Nativity to symbolise the end of the old pagan world and the dawn of the new Christian era. Paradoxically the architecture here is of a type that Italian Renaissance architects wished to revive, and this structure has much in common with the proposals by Antonio da Sangallo for the new St Peter's Basilica being built at that time in Rome.
The massive piers of the central ruin divide the composition into three parts, each with a path winding into the distance, along which the retinues of the Three Kings progress. The star that guided the kings is visible above the treetops to the left of centre. On top of the cliff in the distance we see an angel in the sky announcing the news of Christ's birth to the shepherds; two shepherds with a dog walk down the stepped track towards the holy family.
The Virgin holds the infant Christ, who blesses the eldest king prostrated before him and receives the gold he offers. The next king has taken off his crown and kneels in respect. The third, dark-skinned king takes from an attendant the large golden urn of myrrh he will present to Christ. Joseph stands in the shadows behind the Virgin.
This painting is based on a drawing by Baldassare Peruzzi made in Bologna in about 1522 for Count Battista Bentivoglio, which is now in the British Museum, London. Vasari described the drawing in his Lives of the Artists, adding that the Count gave it to be coloured by Girolamo da Treviso. This painting is not necessarily the one Vasari referred to, but infrared reflectograms show a simple linear underdrawing below the paint, which was probably made from a cartoon or cartoons.
Peruzzi was an architect as well as an artist, and architecture plays an important role in this composition. The three distant arches act as focal points for the procession, directing its flow down towards the figure of the Virgin under the central arch. Contemporary viewers would have been familiar with the triumphal arch as a means of dignifying and directing a procession of distinguished people. Triumphal arches were a prominent part of the elaborate temporary architecture erected for Pope Leo X’s visit to Florence on 15 November 1515, a project with which Peruzzi himself was involved. The depiction of the Castel Sant’Angelo (the mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, built AD 123--139 in Rome) at the far right of Girolamo’s painting is a further reminder of Peruzzi’s role in the Pope’s triumphal entry into Florence, as a large model resembling it was created for this event.
The starting point for the central group in Peruzzi's drawing (and this painting) was a tapestry design made in Raphael's workshop in about 1519. The tapestry cartoon and Peruzzi's drawing also influenced The Adoration of the Kings by Girolamo da Carpi. | A great throng of retainers and animals accompany the Three Kings to pay homage to the infant Christ (Matthew 2: 2--12). Reclining among angels in the heavens, God the Father blesses all those below. The Virgin Mary holds the Christ Child, who blesses the eldest king prostrated before him and receives the gold he offers. The next king has taken off his crown and kneels in respect. The third, dark-skinned king takes from an attendant the large golden urn of myrrh he will present to Christ.
Fragments of a ruined classical building -- perhaps a city gate or triumphal arch -- are scattered in the foreground. Ruined classical architecture is often included in Renaissance paintings of the Nativity to symbolise the end of the old pagan world and the dawn of the new Christian era.
This painting by Girolamo da Treviso is based on a drawing Baldassare Peruzzi made in 1522, which in turn was derived from a tapestry design by Raphael's workshop. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0ECK-0001-0000-0000 | This view is of the Delaware River, which flows between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, two of the original 13 states of what was to become the United States of America. We are positioned on the Pennsylvania side of the river, below the Delaware Water Gap, an area where the river has carved a large ridge through the Appalachian Mountains. The hills on either side of the river are the Kittatinny Mountains -- the hill on the left (in Pennsylvania) is Mount Minsi and the one on the right (in New Jersey) is Mount Tammany.
In the 1850s, much of the American landscape was still unknown to European settlers. George Inness gives it a distinctly European look. The placid river, the relatively low height of the grass-covered hills and the trees and woodlands along the riverbanks all suggest fertile land that can be easily inhabited and cultivated. Inness reinforces this by including other details: cattle wade in the water, two men are fishing -- as well as contemplating the landscape, like us -- and a lumber raft makes its way north along the river. On the right, you can also see the recently constructed Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and a steam locomotive, but Inness does not make them the focus of the painting. This is a tranquil and domesticated landscape, a pastoral scene very different from the often dramatic and extremely harsh terrain that artists and photographers at this time were encountering further west. A rainbow on the left indicates that it has been raining. Inness captures the effect of light breaking through the clouds and eliminating what remains of the dark shadow in the immediate foreground.
Innes was around 30 years old when he painted this picture and already an established artist who had exhibited nationally. Born in New York, he had trained under the French painter, Régis-François Gignoux, a student of Paul Delaroche. He had also made two extended trips to Europe. While there, he had been impressed by the Barbizon landscape painters, especially their looser brushwork, more informal compositions and emphasis upon mood. He particularly admired the early work of Corot. However, perhaps also influenced by his study of Claude and Poussin while in Rome, Inness has given careful thought to the structure of the picture, which he divides into horizontal bands. These include the dark foreground, the mid-distance (which contains the human activity and livestock), the distant hills, the blue sky and a band of white clouds above it. These horizontal bands are countered by the diagonal line of the river which takes us towards the horizon and into the distance. The arc of the rainbow introduces another shape into the picture, which is echoed by the outline of the hills and the contour of the riverbank on the left.
This is first of many paintings by Inness of the Delaware Water Gap and the Delaware Valley that often include details similar to those we see here. | This view is of the Delaware River, which flows between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, two of the original 13 states of what was to become the United States of America. We are positioned on the Pennsylvania side of the river, below the Delaware Water Gap, an area where the river has carved a large ridge through the Appalachian Mountains.
In the 1850s, much of the American landscape was still unknown to European settlers. Inness gives it a distinctly European look to suggest fertile land that can be easily inhabited and cultivated. This is a tranquil and domesticated landscape, a pastoral scene very different from the often dramatic and extremely harsh terrain that artists and photographers at this time were encountering further west. Inness includes the recently constructed railroad and a steam locomotive, but does not make them the focus of the painting. | [
"realist"
] | [
"Realist"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0ESZ-0001-0000-0000 | This arched panel was originally the top of a polyptych painted for a Franciscan church at Montefiore dell'Aso near Fermo in the Italian Marche. Two sad, child-like angels hold up Jesus's lifeless body, one nestling his head sorrowfully against Christ's shoulder. Their pink cheeks and chubby arms and legs form a vivid contrast to Jesus's gaunt and greying face. His eyes are shut and his head hangs down, while his fingers contract in rigor mortis.
Crivelli has paid an almost morbid attention to the details of Christ's body and the wounds inflicted at the crucifixion. The long thorns of his crown are thrust under the flesh of his forehead; holes from the nails that fixed him to the cross gape in the backs of his hands; blood trickles down the wound in his side. The hairs on his chest and around his nipples, and even the pubic hairs running down into his groin, are individually defined.
This composition, with the body of Christ flanked by grieving angels modelled on classical cherubs (known as putti) was inspired by the Florentine sculptor Donatello's bronze relief of the subject, made for the high altar of Sant'Antonio in Padua, the city where Crivelli trained as a painter. Crivelli was skilled at exploiting the optical effects of different gold surfaces, which must have shone and flickered in the candlelight of a medieval church. Both Christ and the angels have patterns of concentric lines and flowers modelled in pastiglia in their haloes, as well as the arms of the cross in Christ's. These would have stood out from the flat burnished gold of the background.
This way of showing Jesus dead but upright was based on a vision of the dead Christ which appeared to Pope Gregory (about 540--604) as he celebrated Mass in the church of Santa Croce in Rome. Gregory was said to have ordered a picture of this vision to be made, which became known as the 'Imago Pietatis' ('image of pity') or the Man of Sorrows. In the Middle Ages people believed that anyone who prayed before the original image or copies of it would be given an Indulgence -- these allowed people to reduce the number of years they spent in purgatory -- of 20,000 years. So the Man of Sorrows became one of the most popular ways of depicting Christ.
The Franciscan Order was especially interested in the suffering of Christ at the Crucifixion, as meditation on the pain of the Passion was believed to lead to salvation. The physicality of Crivelli's depiction would have reminded the friars of Christ's sacrifice, which was commemorated every time mass was performed on the altar below. This image would have been at the top of the altarpiece, above a painting of the Virgin and Child. Together they would have represented the beginning and end of the drama of human salvation.
Crivelli's signature, 'Carolus Crivellus Venetus pinxit' ('Carlo Crivelli the Venetian painted (this)'), is painted as if carved into the stone balustrade. In medieval Franciscan churches, the high altar was usually raised up on a dais at the east end. It was physically and visually separated from the nave by the tramezzo screen, known as a rood screen in England, which divided the public end of the church from the stalls where the friars sat. Selling paintings was a competitive business, however, and large altarpieces like this were an important way of promoting a painter's work. By putting his signature at the top, rather than under the Virgin and Child, Crivelli was ensuring it was visible to the widest possible public. | This arched panel was originally the top of a polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) which Crivelli painted for the Franciscan church at Montefiore dell'Aso near Fermo in the Italian Marches.
Two sad, child-like angels hold up Christ's lifeless body, one nestling his head sorrowfully against Jesus's shoulder. Their pink cheeks and chubby arms and legs form a vivid contrast to Christ's gaunt and greying face. The long thorns of his crown are thrust under the flesh of his forehead; holes from the nails that fixed him to the Cross gape in the backs of his hands; blood trickles down the wound in his side. The Franciscan Order was especially interested in the suffering of Christ at the Crucifixion, as meditation on the pain of the Passion was believed to lead to salvation. | [
"early Renaissance"
] | [
"Early Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F4P-0001-0000-0000 | David Teniers the Younger made his fortune painting bawdy scenes like this one. They were popular with wealthy collectors who were proud of their own good manners compared with those ascribed to peasants (they also found the pictures amusing).
In this painting, Teniers has created screened entrances and exits for the characters in his story, like a stage set. A short wall protrudes into the space on one side, an open door on the other, with an enormous butter churn and an unlit stove flat against the wall like a painted backcloth. He has dressed the foreground with an unlikely amount of large kitchen utensils, ingeniously arranged on either side like the painted wings in a theatre. They engage the eye but also demonstrate Teniers's skill in painting textures. A metal and glass lantern sits close to an enormous earthenware pot and a draped piece of cloth while, on the other side of the picture, a besom broom leans against a heavy wooden table with a slipware jug on it. The jug glints with the reflection of an unseen window.
The unfortunate young woman on her knees has lost a shoe -- perhaps in her efforts to scour yet another pot, but more likely startled by the unwelcome advances of the old man. This painting may be a slice of life, but it could also derive from the comic stock characters performed by companies of Italian travelling players, the commedia dell'arte. The peasant in Teniers’ picture resembles the character Pantalone, or Pantaloon, a stupid old man with a bulbous nose and white beard. But the jaunty feather in his cap here suggests he is crafty enough to take advantage of any situation, especially one involving a woman. He sits with his legs apart, his breeches open -- but empty -- at the crotch, suggesting that he's all talk and no action (a common joke in the commedia dell’arte). The comic old women were often played by male actors bundled up in female garments, but in these genre paintings they are simply made grotesque. In this picture, the eyes of the old woman peeking round the door aren’t on the old man, as might be expected. She beckons to the cat, likely to be a symbol of lasciviousness. The suggestion appears to be that if the cat obeys and runs to her, the old man will do likewise.
David Teniers made his fortune painting bawdy scenes like this one. They were popular with wealthy collectors, who were proud of their own good manners compared with those ascribed to peasants, but found the pictures amusing too. He was influenced by Adriaen Brouwer, who also painted such scenes (but far more bawdy than Teniers' own -- for example, Tavern Scene). Another painting in the National Gallery's collection, A View of a Village with Three Peasants talking in the Foreground, appears to draw on the commedia dell’arte, while A Man holding a Glass and an Old Woman lighting a Pipe is another kitchen scene. | David Teniers the Younger made his fortune painting bawdy scenes like this one. They were popular with wealthy collectors who were proud of their own good manners compared with those ascribed to peasants (they also found the pictures amusing).
The unfortunate young woman on her knees has lost a shoe -- perhaps in her efforts to scour yet another pot, but more likely startled by the unwelcome advances of the old man. This painting may be a slice of life, but it could also derive from the comic stock characters performed by companies of Italian strolling players, the commedia dell'arte. The peasant in this picture resembles Pantalone, or Pantaloon, a stupid old man with a bulbous nose and white beard. But the jaunty feather in his cap here suggests he is crafty enough to take advantage of any situation, especially one involving a woman. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F6S-0001-0000-0000 | In this scene of day-to-day life on the muddy shores of the North Sea, Jan van de Cappelle has depicted a virtually windless day. We see a smalschip (a traditional transport vessel), its helmsman doing his best to catch what wind he can by setting the sails out on both sides. But they hang almost limp and the boat makes only the faintest of wakes in the glassy water. A rowing boat carrying two passengers seems to be about to intercept it -- perhaps they are being taken out to a bigger vessel anchored in deeper water.
Meanwhile the crewman on the beached boat (a kaag) seems to be pouring something into a basket held up by his colleague. It looks as though they have been fishing for shellfish and are landing their catch. It's an image of calm and plenty, but there's also a reminder of the destructive power of the sea: the timbers of a wreck protrude from the mud. | In this scene of day-to-day life on the muddy shores of the North Sea, Jan van de Cappelle has depicted a virtually windless day. We see a smalschip (a traditional transport vessel), its helmsman doing his best to catch what wind he can by setting the sails out on both sides. But they hang almost limp and the boat makes only the faintest of wakes in the glassy water. A rowing boat carrying two passengers seems to be about to intercept it -- perhaps they are being taken out to a bigger vessel anchored in deeper water.
Meanwhile the crewman on the beached boat (a kaag) seems to be pouring something into a basket held up by his colleague. It looks as though they have been fishing for shellfish and are landing their catch. It's an image of calm and plenty, but there's also a reminder of the destructive power of the sea: the timbers of a wreck protrude from the mud. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0ETL-0001-0000-0000 | This painting illustrates an episode described in the Old Testament (1 Samuel: 6-12), which is rarely depicted in art. The Ark -- a wooden chest covered in gold containing the Ten Commandments -- is pulled along on a cart drawn by cattle. It is being returned to the Israelites after the Philistines stole it in battle, and the Israelites are rejoicing. The Ark was a sacred object to Jews and Christians as it had been built by Moses according to God's instructions. God punished the Philistines for their theft and forced them to send the Ark back to its rightful owners.
Dramatic white light illuminates the snow-capped mountains and distant town, representing the Israelites' city of Besh-shemesh. The stormy sky on the left leaves most of the landscape in shade. Although the composition is imaginary, the landscape resembles the countryside around Rome, where Bourdon spent most of his life. Bourdon's The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Metropolitan Museum, New York), the date of which is uncertain, uses a similar composition including group of figures in the foreground with a water mill, a lake and buildings behind them.
This painting is in Bourdon's later style. The classical composition shows the influence of Nicolas Poussin, the most celebrated landscape painter in seventeenth-century France. Our attention is drawn to the dramatic gestures of the figures, varied architecture and contrast between light and shade. Bourdon admired Poussin's work and delivered a lecture on his Christ healing the Blind Man of Jericho (Louvre, Paris) to members of the Académie Royale.
The inscription on the back of the painting reads 'C'est La Toile du Tableaux/A. Mr. Thomas./1659' (This is the canvas of the painting belonging to Mr Thomas./1659), which appeared when the painting was restored. We are not sure who the patron is or whether the inscription is genuine. Bourdon was in his native city of Montpelier during 1657 and 1658, and he may have secured the patronage of Antoine de Thomas or Monsieur Maistre N. de Thomas, both government officials who worked there.
During the late eighteenth century the painting was owned by the celebrated English painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who praised it in his Discourses (lectures delivered to Royal Academy students) in 1788, as 'one in which the poetical style of landscape may be seen happily executed'. The painting was later given to Sir George Beaumont, who was instrumental in the founding of the National Gallery, and displayed at his home, Coleorton Hall, Leicestershire. It was so popular with this family that his wife made a copy in 1798, but its whereabouts is unknown. | This painting illustrates an episode described in the Old Testament (1 Samuel: 6-12), which is rarely depicted in art. The Ark -- a wooden chest covered in gold containing the Ten Commandments -- is pulled along on a cart drawn by cattle. It is being returned to the Israelites after the Philistines stole it in battle, and the Israelites are rejoicing. The Ark was a sacred object to Jews and Christians as it had been built by Moses according to God's instructions. God punished the Philistines for their theft and forced them to send the Ark back to its rightful owners.
Across the lake, vivid white buildings represent the Israelites' city of Besh-shemesh. Although the landscape with snow-capped mountains is imaginary, it resembles the countryside around Rome, where Bourdon spent most of his life. The classical composition, which draws our attention to the figures' dramatic gestures, varied architecture and the contrast between light and shade, shows the influence of Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), the most celebrated painter in seventeenth-century France. | [
"baroque",
"academic"
] | [
"Baroque",
"Academic"
] | [
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FME-0001-0000-0000 | This is an early work by Jacob van Ruisdael, probably made when he was only about 20 years old, around the time that he qualified as an artist and joined the painters’ guild in his home town of Haarlem. It seems to have been influenced by the style of his uncle, Salomon van Ruysdael, who may have been one of his teachers.
Salomon painted many river and estuary scenes, taking a 'naturalistic' approach in which he didn’t necessarily paint a real view, but composed pictures evocative of the everyday waterways and woodlands typical of the landscape around Haarlem. The effects of cloud building in a big sky and of reflections in water were central to his work, and he often used a fairly restricted range of colours, mainly blues, greens and greys. There's a good example of this style in the National Gallery's collection: River Scene.
In the painting we see here, van Ruisdael has taken a similar approach. Instead of a long sweeping view of the countryside, he has built the composition around a narrow focus: a stand of scrubby trees and a farmhouse on the edge of a river. And he has made it all the more artistically challenging by choosing a backlit scene. While this increases the visual impact of the trees against a bright sky, it required him to evoke the effects of light filtering through the leaves and the glare of the sun on the surface of the river.
If you look closely at the brushwork, you can see the techniques van Ruisdael used to create a convincing effect. He paid particular attention to the depiction of the trees in the centre of the picture, building up an impression of the myriad colours of the leaves with thousands of tiny dabs and smudges of different greens, browns and yellows, as well as a few tiny flecks of white. Beneath the canopy are the blue-greens of a willow pollard, the white flowers of an elder in bloom and the spiky light-green leaves of the reeds growing against the river bank.
By contrast, he established the blues of the sky with regular horizontal brushstrokes, and built up the greys and whites of the clouds by using thicker paint and smudging the colours together. For the glassy reflections in the water he used more even paint layers, suggesting the ripples with short lateral streaks of light grey, and picking out the glitter on the surface with delicate spatters of bright white. The cottage and covered hayrick --after which the painting was later named -- are by contrast much more sketchily painted.
There is another version of this painting in the Detroit Institute of Arts, and a chalk drawing by van Ruisdael of a similar composition was sold at auction in 1956 (location unknown). There are records from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of a companion piece to this picture, 'A Cornfield', which has not been identified. | This is an early work by Jacob van Ruisdael, probably made when he was only about 20 years old, around the time that he qualified as an artist and joined the painters’ guild in his home town of Haarlem. He has built the composition around a stand of scrubby trees and a farmhouse on the edge of a river -- and made it all the more artistically challenging by choosing a backlit scene. While this increases the visual impact of the trees against a bright sky, it required him to evoke the effects of light filtering through them.
If you look closely at the brushwork here, you can see the techniques that van Ruisdael used to create a convincing effect. He has built up an impression of the myriad colours of the leaves with thousands of tiny dabs and smudges of different greens, browns and yellows, as well as a few tiny flecks of white. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FRW-0001-0000-0000 | Willem Duyster was an Amsterdam painter who specialised in small interior scenes and was one of the pioneers of guardroom paintings, which show off-duty soldiers at rest. This painting of a game of tric-trac, a once-popular version of backgammon, shows his mastery at depicting materials and endowing his scenes with a subtle narrative.
As two men focus intently on the game, a woman chalks the score on the side of the board. A figure in the background sits smoking, lost in contemplation, while another man lights a pipe from a bowl of embers. None of the players look at one another and Duyster has wrapped each of them in their own private mental world. The room in which they sit is well appointed without being luxurious: there is a fine carpet on the table (which carries his signature), coal and wood lie on the floor beneath an elaborate stove, but the room is otherwise modest. The scene is perhaps set in the woman’s house since she wears an apron and is keeping the score.
Duyster painted board and card games many times, and a similar scene in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, shows an all-male company with one of the players wearing a sword, while another in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, has the non-players drinking and playing music. In both pictures one of the characters looks out at the viewer, drawing them in. Some Dutch depictions of games carry a moral message warning against the dangers of gambling and idleness, but this painting is a sober and contemplative image: there is no drink in evidence, nor any sign of gambling. This is a group enjoying the pleasures of company and gentle play.
All but one of the figures are shown in profile which gives the painting a certain formality. However, Duyster skilfully varies the poses of his characters and leads the viewer’s eye in a circle round the cluster of players. The woman’s outstretched leg reaches across to the tuft of trailing carpet to complete the sweep, while her extended arm chalking the score echoes that of the man placing his counter on the board. Such subtleties stop the scene from becoming static.
The pleasures offered by the painting are quiet ones: the comforting familiarity of the game and the clever way Duyster uses the light coming from the left to pick out the sheen of silks and the different textures in the room. | Two men concentrate on a game of tric-trac, a form of backgammon, while a woman chalks the score on the side of the board. Meanwhile one man sits smoking, lost in his thoughts, while another lights a pipe from a bowl of embers. None of them is speaking and nor do they look at one another; all the interaction happens on the board.
Willem Duyster’s quiet scene does not have an obvious narrative but it is a satisfying composition. He paints four of the figures in profile but each is distinctive, and he enlivens what could be a static gathering by arranging the central figures in a circle and leading the eye around them. He not only skilfully depicts the way light falls on silks but also dresses his figures in subtle tones that do not break the atmosphere of gentle conviviality and reverie. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0EXE-0001-0000-0000 | The Virgin appears lost in thought as she firmly clutches her son to her. The infant Christ holds an apple in one hand, symbolic of his role as the new Adam, born to redeem mankind from original sin after the Fall.
The red cloth hanging over the bar behind the Virgin has been drawn back to reveal a landscape of pine trees with a fortified town perched on top of a hill and a convent just below and outside the walls. The position of the buildings directly beside the heads of the Virgin and Child suggests that they had a special importance and may represent a real place.
The foreshortened arms of the Virgin's throne probably mean that it was originally placed quite high above the viewer. The marble wall behind the Virgin is also unusual in a small devotional painting and suggests that this is actually a fragment from a larger picture, most likely an altarpiece. Originally, saints probably stood to either side of a raised throne with their heads just rising above the wall. The back of the panel also indicates that it has been cut down, and there is a join, which one would not expect to find in a painting of this size. Usually a small picture would be painted on a single panel. Here the join runs down the left-hand side of the painting where one would expect to find a join in an altarpiece made of three large planks of wood arranged vertically. The wood it is painted on was severely damaged by woodworm, which may explain why the altarpiece was cut down. Equally it may just have been cut to make it more attractive for sale to a private collector.
Morone's Moscardo Madonna in the Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, has the same composition in reverse. Either the same cartoon was used to make both or a drawing made from one composition was used to make the other. Although there are minor differences in the figures between the two paintings, the backgrounds are completely different. The outlines of the halo, curtain bar and the mouldings of the wall were all incised in the National Gallery’s painting. The painting in Verona does not have these incised lines, which would suggest that it was copied from the National Gallery’s painting.
Morone was one of the leading painters in Verona in the early sixteenth century. The very rich, bright colours and the clear light which sharply illuminates every detail are typical of Veronese art of the period, also apparent in the work of Morando and Gerolamo dai Libri. The painting is not easy to date as Morone’s style seems not to have developed in an obvious way, and works he made in the early 1500s are similar to those he was making over 20 years later. The gilt metal decoration on the wall behind the Virgin and Child can be matched exactly with that in the Sacristy of Santa Maria in Organo in Verona of 1505—1510, a church for which Morone painted an altarpiece in 1503. However the National Gallery’s painting seems a very late work, probably dating from the 1520s. | The Virgin appears lost in thought as she firmly clutches her son to her. The infant Christ holds an apple in one hand, symbolising his role as the new Adam, born to redeem mankind from original sin after the Fall.
The painting is a fragment of an altarpiece, and has been cut down. The foreshortened arms of the Virgin's throne suggest that it was originally placed quite high above the viewer, probably flanked by standing saints.The wood it is painted on was severely damaged by woodworm, which may explain why it was cut.
Morone was one of the leading painters in Verona in the early sixteenth century. The very rich, bright colours and the clear light which sharply illuminates every detail are typical of Veronese art of the period. The painting is a late work and probably dates from the 1520s. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FN7-0001-0000-0000 | This small, evocative painting shows the work of Aelbert Cuyp at the peak of his maturity as an artist. It’s a picture full of light and reflections, transforming a simple view of a river at evening time into visual harmony.
Light puffy clouds, lit here and there by the evening sun, drift overhead, leaving patches of shimmering water below that carry almost perfect reflections of boats, animals and distant trees. The wide curve of the small boat that carries two fishermen is echoed in the sweeping downward curve of the high sand dune on the right, framing the scene between them. Tucked into the shelter of the dune, a herdsman squats on his haunches and one of his animals turns towards him with an enquiring gaze.
The depth of colour is at its richest in this corner of the picture, giving the cows weight and substance, and a warm graininess to the sand dune behind them. You can almost hear the faint splash of a hoof stamping in the water or the swish of a tail as the evening midges begin to bite. In a country greatly dependent on its cattle for its wealth, Cuyp has brought these magnificent beasts close to us, giving them as much character as -- and much more significance than -- the people around them. The evening is so still that the man in the central boat a little way off needs oars as well as a sail to propel him. A glint of sunlight catches the curve of the hull, sweeping on up the arc of the sail.
Several Dutch artists who had been to Italy painted landscapes full of the soft light of the Mediterranean. Cuyp was probably the most important of the artists to be influenced by their work. He transferred this distinctive light to his Dutch scenes, giving them the soft radiance we see in this painting, and in the much larger, more ambitious A Distant View of Dordrecht, with a Milkmaid and Four Cows, and Other Figures ('The Large Dort') and River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants.
English travellers to Holland in the seventeenth century remarked with surprise that butchers, bakers, blacksmiths and cobblers adorned their homes with pictures. John Evelyn, the famous diarist, was surprised at the amount of money that even 'a common farmer' paid for a picture. This small painting might once have hung on the walls of a mansion belonging to a wealthy collector, but it also might have been hung in a humbler house -- one where its theme would have appealed to the owner in a more personal way. | This small, evocative painting shows the work of Aelbert Cuyp at the peak of his maturity as an artist. It’s a picture full of light and reflections, transforming a simple view of a river at evening time into visual harmony.
Light puffy clouds lit by the evening sun drift overhead, leaving patches of shimmering water below that carry almost perfect reflections of boats, animals and distant trees. In a country greatly dependent on its cattle for its wealth, Cuyp has brought these magnificent beasts close to us, giving them as much character as -- and much more significance than -- the people around them.
Several Dutch artists who had been to Italy painted landscapes full of the soft light of the Mediterranean. Cuyp was probably the most important of the artists to be influenced by their work. He transferred this distinctive light to his Dutch scenes, giving them the soft radiance you see here. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FEC-0001-0000-0000 | This triple portrait was intended as a model for a full-length statue of Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (1585--1642). He wears the robe and skull cap of a cardinal, a position granted to him in 1622. On a blue ribbon hangs the Order of the Holy Spirit, symbolised by the dove just visible along the bottom edge.
Richelieu became one of the most significant political figures in seventeenth-century Europe, and in 1624 he was appointed Chief Minister to the French King Louis XIII (1601--1643). The head is repeated in this painting in three different poses: facing forward and in profile turned to the left and the right. The central portrait relates to the artist's full-length painting Cardinal de Richelieu, also in the National Gallery.
The painting was executed in Paris and in 1642 was sent to the Italian sculptor Francesco Mochi (1580--1654) in Rome. Mochi's statue was formerly in the Château de La Meilleraye in Poitou, but in 1793, during the French Revolution, the head was removed and is now lost. The remaining statue is in the Musée du Pilori, Niort.
The commission for a full-length statue of Richelieu had originally been granted to the more renowned Italian sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, but the project was abandoned in 1641 and a bust was made instead. Once in Paris, Bernini's bust was criticised for its poor resemblance to Richelieu, and this was blamed on the inaccuracy of the painted profiles, supplied by an unknown painter, on which Bernini had based his work. Shortly after this, Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602--1661), soon to become the Minister of France following Richelieu's death, asked the celebrated Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck to provide Bernini with a portrait on which to create the full statue (this artist had supplied Bernini with a portrait for his bust of King Charles I of England). However, Van Dyck died before the commission was confirmed.
Champaigne probably painted the central and right heads; an inscription above the latter reads: 'this is the better one'. The rest of the painting was likely carried out by his workshop, as the costumes lack vitality and accuracy of detail. An earlier high-quality single profile of Richelieu by the artist is now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg. Painted underneath it and invisible to the naked eye are several other portraits in varying profiles. | This triple portrait was intended as a model for a full-length statue of Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (1585--1642), who became Cardinal in 1622 and the Chief Minister of France in 1624. He wears a Cardinal's robe, skull cap and blue ribbon adorned with the Order of the Holy Spirit, symbolised by the dove at the bottom of the painting. The head is repeated in this painting in three different poses: facing forward and in profile turned to the right and left. The central portrait relates to the artist's full-length painting Cardinal de Richelieu, also in the National Gallery. The triple portrait was executed in Paris and sent to Rome to the Italian sculptor Francesco Mochi (1580--1654) in around 1642.
Champaigne probably painted the central and right heads: an inscription above the latter reads: 'this is the better one'. The rest of the painting was likely carried out by his workshop. | [
"baroque",
"academic"
] | [
"Baroque",
"Academic"
] | [
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FSV-0001-0000-0000 | The date 1514 is just visible on the letter carried by the sitter, although the words are illegible. The melancholy mood of the painting is underlined by the inscription on the parapet which reads, in primitive French, 'who loves well is slow to forget'.
The unknown young man wears the Maltese Cross of the Order of Saint John. It has been suggested that he may be Giulio de’ Medici, from the ruling family of Florence. In 1513 Giulio’s cousin Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope Leo X and made Giulio a Knight of Rhodes. The Knights lost Rhodes to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1523 and stayed in Rome, Viterbo and elsewhere while seeking a new base. After he was elected Pope Clement VII in 1523, Giulio was personally responsible for establishing the Knights on the island of Malta in 1530.
In 1514 Franciabigio was working for the Order, painting a fresco of the Last Supper in the refectory of their Convitto della Calza in Florence.The prioress of the convent, Sister Antonia, was a Medici. She is identified by an inscription on the fresco at the lower left, and the wine jugs on the table are painted with the Maltese Cross and the arms of the Medici. It is possible that she also commissioned this portrait as a memento of her relative.
Giulio de’ Medici’s mother was Fioretta Gorini (Fioretta is a diminutive of Antonia); his father Giuliano de’ Medici was assassinated a month before his birth. He was only legitimised and his parents’ marriage recognised in September 1513 (by Leo X). One theory is that Sister Antonia may have commissioned both the portrait and the fresco to commemorate this long awaited legitimisation as part of the Medici family.
Franciabigio’s portraits are among his finest works for their immediacy and psychological intensity. The composition and pose of the sitter here recalls in reverse Franciabigio’s Portrait of a Man with Gloves (Uffizi, Florence), also signed and dated 1514. In that painting Franciabigio experiments with a new approach to ordering the sitter’s features – his eyes, the line of his mouth and tilt of his head all lie parallel to the angle of his cap. This approach is reused and perfected in the Portrait of a Knight of Malta, suggesting that it was completed after the Uffizi portrait.
The painting is influenced by the work of Andrea del Sarto, with whom Franciabigio was friends and shared a workshop. From Sarto he adopted the soft smoky shadows of the face, the smouldering melancholy expression seen in the almost contemporaneous Portrait of a Young Man, and the pose of his nearly contemporary portrait of a woman known as Lucrezia (Prado, Madrid). However, the composition ultimately derives from portraits painted by Raphael during his period in Florence, which had a significant impact on other artists working in the city, such as Ridolfo Ghirlandaio and Rosso Fiorentino.
The inclusion of a parapet is a feature common to Venetian portraits of this period. It is used to set the figure back in pictorial space and to neatly crop the lower part of the body. Franciabigio takes the illusion a step further and allows the knight's sleeve to hang over the edge of the parapet into our space, which again recalls the art of Venice, particularly the pose of Titian’s Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo of about 1510. | The date 1514 is just visible on the letter carried by the sitter, although the words are illegible. The inscription in the parapet reads, in primitive French, 'who loves well is slow to forget'. The sitter wears the Maltese Cross of the Order of Saint John. In 1514 Franciabigio was working for the Order painting a fresco of the Last Supper in their convent in Florence. The prioress who commissioned the fresco from Franciabigio was a Medici, and it has been suggested that the sitter of this portrait is Giulio de’ Medici, who was made a Knight of Rhodes in 1513. After Giulio was made Pope Clement VII, he was personally responsible for securing the island of Malta for the Knights in 1530. However, this identification is uncertain.
Franciabigio’s portraits are among his finest works for their immediacy and psychological intensity. From Andrea del Sarto he adopted the soft smoky shadows of the face and the smouldering melancholy expression. However, the composition ultimately derives from portraits painted by Raphael during his period in Florence. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FSY-0001-0000-0000 | We do not know this man's identity, although he was once thought to be Martin Luther. He wears a white shirt, its collar embroidered with Xs and Os, with a purplish doublet over it. A brown garment, perhaps of fur, is tied across his chest. His black, fur-lined coat may have been overpainted; the background certainly was, but once may have shown parts of a building.
This was once the left wing of a folding diptych or triptych. There are remains of red paint on the reverse, which once may have shown an object against a red background, perhaps a stone figure of a biblical character in a red marble niche.
The portrait has much in common with Bruges paintings of the 1520s attributed to Jan Provoost, Albert Cornelis, Lancelot Blondeel and the Master of the Holy Blood. Because of its condition is it difficult to judge who painted it, but the the nose, seen almost in profile, sits strangely with the rest of the head, turned in three-quarter view. The Master of the Holy Blood in particular tended to distort his faces in a similar way, which makes it probable that is from his workshop. | We do not know this man's identity, although he was once thought to be the sixteenth-century theologian Martin Luther, who was a leading figure of the Protestant Reformation. This was once the left wing of a folding diptych or triptych (a painting of two or three parts respectively). There are remains of red paint on the reverse, which may have shown an object against a red background, perhaps a stone figure of a biblical character in a red marble niche.
The portrait has much in common with Bruges paintings of the 1520s. One artist in particular, known as the Master of the Holy Blood, tended to distort his faces in a similar way to that seen here -- the large nose is almost in profile, while the face is in three-quarter view. It seems likely this painting is from his workshop. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FFJ-0001-0000-0000 | Wybrand Hendriks has piled up his bouquet of fruit and flowers against a soft, green background of woodland trees, till it tips sideways and tumbles down the canvas on a steep diagonal, ending in the forms of the two dead birds. They are snipe, game birds to be eaten. An exotic pineapple sits at the top of the arrangement, its weight appearing to have caused the mini avalanche. It's a multisensory painting and evokes the taste, touch and smell as much as the sight of so much abundance.
Although Hendriks includes some simple, domestic flowers and fruit -- bindweed, Sweet William, peony, an apple, a walnut and rosehips -- he concentrates on the exotic. As well as the rare and expensive pineapple, grapes, peaches and a pomegranate crowd together; a melon squeezes into the wicker basket that contains the arrangement. It seems to suggest that it is man's ingenuity as much as nature that is celebrated in the picture: in Europe, most of the fruits could only be grown in a glasshouse. And as a glasshouse and skilled gardeners would only be found in the home of a prosperous person, perhaps wealth is celebrated too.
Hendriks's own skill was in reproducing the many textures -- of leaves, petals, fruit and feathers -- presented in the picture. The leaves alone seem to present a multitude of greens. Some are fresh, as if a breeze still blows them; some curl, tinged with pink, while others have nibbled edges. The succulent pineapple spikes top it all like a crown. The velvety skin of a peach contrasts with the hard, ridged melon rind, and the snipes' downy feathers with the cool, marble shelf on which they lay; the glow of the green grapes compares with the misty film on the purple. Two butterflies -- a red admiral and a six spot burnet -- are featured, perhaps to show Hendriks's knowledge of these creatures, perhaps because such knowledge was fashionable among collectors. An earwig, an ant and a fly are hidden away, to be found with patient looking.
Not all the fruit is edible -- some of the grapes in particular are past their prime. But this wouldn't have been a bar to enjoyment of the picture when it was painted. In the days before refrigeration fruit didn't have to be perfect to be eaten. A hundred years before this painting, artists sometimes used dying fruit and flowers and short-lived insects as symbols of the brevity of life, but in the eighteenth century such a concept was less commonly used. It's likely that Hendriks was simply painting what he saw, perhaps as an allegory of luxury but not as a moral lesson.
Hendriks was an exceptionally versatile artist, producing portraits, landscapes, genre scenes and still-life paintings. He had trained in a workshop that supplied decorative wall paintings for the elegant homes of wealthy art lovers. He was for several years curator of the art collection at the Teylers Stichting, Haarlem (now Teylers Museum). In this still life, Hendriks painted in the manner of Jan van Os, his contemporary, whose work is also represented in the National Gallery's Fruit and Flowers in a Terracotta Vase and Fruit, Flowers and a Fish. | Wybrand Hendriks has piled up his bouquet of fruit and flowers against a soft, green background of woodland trees, till it tips sideways and tumbles down the canvas on a steep diagonal, ending in the forms of the two dead birds. They are snipe, game birds to be eaten. An exotic pineapple sits at the top of the arrangement, its weight appearing to have caused the mini avalanche. It's a multisensory painting and evokes the taste, touch and smell as much as the sight of so much abundance.
Hendriks was an exceptionally versatile artist, producing portraits, landscapes, genre scenes and still-life paintings. He had trained in a workshop that supplied decorative wall paintings for the elegant homes of wealthy art lovers. He was for several years curator of the art collection at the Teylers Stichting, Haarlem (now Teylers Museum). | [
"neoclassical"
] | [
"Neoclassical"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FY1-0001-0000-0000 | The optical illusion created by this painting, is a powerful one. Rembrandt has used contrasts between light and dark -- for example, the blacks and whites of the sitter’s clothes, the highlights on her nose, the heavy shadow under her chin and the lighter, subtle greys of her headdress -- to create a highly convincing three-dimensional effect. The old lady’s head seems to project forward out of the picture.
But it isn’t only the light effects which make the portrait seem so lifelike. Rembrandt has evoked the old lady’s blotched, blemished and sagging skin using different textures and thicknesses of paint. The furrows and shadows, the wrinkles and pudginess make her face seem almost tangible. He did this with a lively brush, applying the paint fluidly with short and curving strokes, as well as dabs and stipples.
The painting was made when Rembrandt was 28 years old, soon after he arrived in Amsterdam to set up his own studio. The oval shape was conventional in the city at that time, but the energetic and creative way of applying paint to the canvas represents a significant change in Rembrandt's style from his more smoothly painted portraits of only a year or two earlier. He was clearly excited by the possibilities of his art and keen to experiment.
The painting does not record the sitter’s name, though it does give her age (83), as well as the date it was made (1634) and Rembrandt’s signature. Because of a misinterpreted label on a printed copy of the painting, it was thought for some time to be the artist's grandmother, but about 25 years ago the sitter was identified as Aechje Claesdr. She was the widow of the Rotterdam brewer Jan Pesser (who died in 1619) and one of the leading figures among Rotterdam's Remonstrant community.
The Remonstrants were Protestants, but their beliefs were slightly different from the Calvinist orthodoxy that dominated religion in Holland at the time. In 1619, they were banned from practising and many of their preachers were persecuted. Two of Aechje's sons-in-law were Remonstrant preachers and she had to hide one of them in her house, but she managed to escape persecution herself. In 1634 Rembrandt came to Rotterdam to paint not only Aechje's portrait but also those of her son Dirck and his wife Haesje van Cleyburgh. It may be that the famous preacher Johannes Wtenbogaert, whose portrait Rembrandt had painted in 1633 and who was living in Rotterdam at that time, introduced him to the family.
Aechje’s costume is not a fashionable one for 1634 -- she is dressed in a style which was in vogue during her youth. Over a plain bodice she is wearing a sleeveless coat, or graingat, with large shoulder wings. Her pleated ruff is of moderate size, and she has tied an apron over her coat. Despite her wealth, her clothes are relatively modest -- the only hint of luxury are the three tiny gold pins which hold her two-piece headdress in place. | The optical illusion created by this painting is a powerful one. Rembrandt has used contrasts between light and dark -- for example, the blacks and whites of the sitter’s clothes, the highlights on her nose and the heavy shadow under her chin -- to create a highly convincing three-dimensional effect. The old lady’s head seems to project forward out of the picture.
It isn’t only light effects that make this portrait seem so lifelike. Rembrandt has evoked the old lady’s blotched, blemished and sagging skin using different textures and thicknesses of paint. The furrows and shadows, the wrinkles and pudginess make her face seem almost tangible. He did this with a lively brush, applying the paint fluidly with short and curving strokes as well as dabs and stipples.
Long thought to be a portrait of Rembrandt’s grandmother, the sitter has now been identified as Aechje Claesdr. (1551--about 1635), the widow of the Rotterdam brewer Jan Pesser, who died in 1619. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FOY-0001-0000-0000 | A small, naked figure, supported in a white cloth, is being carried upwards by two angels. Below is part of a roof; above, God the Father sits on a Gothic throne, ringed by angels with multiple wings.
This is the top part of the right wing of an altarpiece that stood on the high altar of the Abbey of St Bertin in Saint-Omer, northern France. The naked figure is the soul of Saint Bertin, whose death scene originally appeared immediately below; he was abbot of Saint-Omer in the late seventh and early eighth century and took part in the conversion of the pagan French tribes to Christianity. The top of the left wing, A Choir of Angels, is also in the National Gallery's collection, while the main parts of the wings, which show scenes from the life of Saint Bertin, are now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.
Technical analysis shows us that Simon Marmion was designing or at least adapting these pictures as he went along, and tells us much about his working methods. The circular aureole around God the Father has been drawn with a compass; the hole made by the point is visible in the middle of the draperies in an infrared reflectogram. The horizontal lines of the slates on the roof were incised in the chalk ground, and there are differences between the underdrawing and the final painted version (God's crown is smaller, and there are minor changes to the throne, the figure of Saint Bertin and the angels' draperies).
On the back, the top part of a Gothic stone canopy is painted in grisaille, identical to that on the other wing. The designs were transferred onto each panel by pouncing. The unpainted edges at the tops and sides are original but at the lower edges the paint and ground have been scraped away. This took place in 1822/3 when our fragments were cut off the Berlin panels by a French dealer who thought their unusual shape would have been 'disagreeable' in a picture gallery. | Two angels carry a small, naked figure upwards. Below is part of a roof; above, God the Father sits on a Gothic throne, ringed by angels with multiple wings. This is the top part of the right wing of an altarpiece that stood on the high altar of the Abbey of St Bertin in Saint-Omer, northern France.
The naked figure is the soul of Saint Bertin, whose death scene originally appeared immediately below. On the back, the top part of a Gothic stone canopy is painted in grisaille (in shades of black, white and grey), identical to that on the other wing, A Choir of Angels. When the wings were closed, the canopies would have have covered up the gilded silver Crucifixion in the centre of the shrine. | [
"Gothic",
"early Renaissance"
] | [
"Gothic",
"Early Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FJS-0001-0000-0000 | This is the main panel of the Ansidei Altarpiece that the 22-year-old Raphael painted for the Ansidei family chapel in the Servite Church of S. Fiorenzo in Perugia in 1505.
The Virgin sits in majesty on a carved wooden throne with the Christ Child upright and alert on her lap. A small book is open on her knee and she follows the text she is reading with her finger. She draws her baby’s attention to a passage in the book, presumably containing allusions to his future sacrifice. A string of coral beads ending in jewelled crosses is suspended from the throne and resembles a rosary, a reminder of the blood Christ will shed at the Crucifixion. The Latin inscription at the top of the throne, ‘SALVE MATER CHRISTI’ ('Hail Mother of Christ'), would have acted as a prompt to the recitation of the rosary.
John the Baptist points to the infant Christ and gazes at his rock crystal cross, in foreknowledge of Christ's future death. The older, more contemplative Saint Nicholas, identified by his bishop’s mitre and crosier, withdraws slightly behind the throne. His furrowed brow indicates that he is concentrating on his book. At his feet are three golden balls which represent the purses of gold he gave as dowries to the three daughters of an impoverished nobleman to save them from prostitution. This type of composition, with saints flanking the enthroned Virgin and Child in a unified image, is known as a sacra conversazione ('sacred conversation').
The lower horizontal panel, known as the predella, beneath the main panel of the altarpiece probably depicted two scenes: John the Baptist Preaching and another scene showing a posthumous miracle of Saint Nicholas. Each narrative scene would have been positioned beneath the saint in the main panel to whom it related.
Raphael carefully calculated the geometry of the composition, dividing it horizontally and vertically into harmonious thirds. The picture surface was incised with a grid nine squares wide by six squares high. This suggests that Raphael worked out his scheme in squared composition drawings on paper and then transferred the design to the panel before he began painting.
Technical investigation has revealed that the pale grey architecture and vaulting behind the Virgin’s throne, which provides a sacred space for the figures, was not planned by Raphael from the beginning but was painted over the sky and landscape. Raphael used the pre-existing grid to position the parapet a third of the way up and the mouldings two-thirds of the way up the panel. This explains why this late addition appears so integral to the composition. He may have decided to include the barrel-vaulted architecture in the altarpiece to compensate for the plainness of the Ansidei Chapel.
The Ansidei Madonna is the grandest and most successfully designed of Raphael’s early Madonnas. The painting is closest in style and form to the Colonna Altarpiece (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which gives an idea of how the Ansidei Madonna would have appeared before Raphael added the architectural backdrop. | This is the main panel of the altarpiece Raphael painted for the Ansidei family chapel in the Servite Church of S. Fiorenzo in Perugia in 1505.
The Virgin sits in majesty on a carved wooden throne with the Christ Child on her lap. She draws his attention to a passage in the book on her knee. A string of coral beads ending in jewelled crosses like a rosary is suspended from the throne, a reminder of the blood Christ will shed at the Crucifixion. The Latin inscription, ‘SALVE MATER CHRISTI’ ('Hail Mother of Christ'), would have acted as a prompt to the recitation of the rosary. John the Baptist points to the infant Christ and gazes at his own cross, in foreknowledge of Christ's future death. Saint Nicholas concentrates on his book.
Raphael carefully calculated the geometry of the composition, using an incised grid to divide it horizontally and vertically into harmonious thirds before he began painting. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FTP-0001-0000-0000 | The infant Christ stands on the lap of the Virgin Mary, reaching forward to give her a kiss. She turns her cheek to receive her son's embrace, supporting him as he seems to be a little unsteady on his feet. Strong lighting emphasises the smooth, pale skin of both figures as well as Christ's golden hair, though it leaves much of his face in shadow. Sassoferrato has given great attention to the folds of drapery, both in the Virgin's blue cloak and in the deep green curtain behind the two figures. Through an archway, we see Saint Joseph coming towards the house and, behind him, a view of distant mountains.
Sassoferrato was born Giovanni Battista Salvi and took his nickname from the town of his birth, but he spent the majority of his career working in Rome, where his immaculately polished paintings were consciously anachronistic. This composition is based on an etching by Guido Reni, a seventeenth-century painter from Bologna whose work deeply influenced Sassoferrato. However, Sassoferrato's style, with its intense colours, soft modelling of form, and highly finished, enamel-like quality, is most deeply indebted to earlier artists such as Raphael and Perugino. We know that he produced copies after these masters' works (the National Gallery owns a copy after Perugino that is probably by Sassoferrato: The Baptism of Christ), and used elements from their paintings and drawings in his own compositions. Sassoferrato was so closely linked to these artists that his popularity in the nineteenth century was in part thanks to a renewed interest in the work of Raphael. He in turn may have influenced the Pre-Raphaelites.
Like his contemporary Dolci, Sassoferrato produced multiple versions of his smaller paintings, which could be sold to private patrons. The relatively small size of this picture, the tender relationship between mother and child and the intimate, somewhat domestic nature of the setting suggest that it was intended for private devotion. It may never have been delivered to its patron, however, since it was probably one of a group of late works left in Sassoferrato's studio at his death in 1685. The painting is thought to have passed to his son, Alessio Salvi, and then to Salvi's granddaughter, remaining in the family until the early nineteenth century.
This picture and The Virgin in Prayer were both acquired by the National Gallery in the mid-nineteenth century, when Sassoferrato's star was high in the London art world. The bright colours of both pictures were initially toned down by the Gallery using tinted varnish and overpainted with cobalt blue to better align with the Victorian taste for more subdued colouring. When this picture was cleaned in 1986, these layers were removed, and the Virgin's dazzling ultramarine robe and the vivid green curtain can now be appreciated as the artist originally intended. | The infant Christ stands on the lap of the Virgin Mary, reaching forward to give her a kiss. She turns her cheek to receive her son's embrace, supporting him as he seems to be a little unsteady on his feet. Strong lighting emphasises the smooth, pale skin of both figures as well as Christ's golden hair, though it leaves much of his face in shadow. Sassoferrato has given great attention to the folds of drapery, both in the Virgin's blue cloak and in the deep green curtain behind the two figures. Through an archway, we see Saint Joseph coming towards the house and, behind him, a view of distant mountains.
This composition is based on an etching by the seventeenth-century painter Guido Reni. Sassoferrato was influenced by Reni, as well as by earlier artists such as Raphael and Perugino, both of whom adopted a similarly smooth finish. | [
"baroque",
"academic"
] | [
"Baroque",
"Academic"
] | [
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FJZ-0001-0000-0000 | The heavy, black clouds that hang low over the castle seem to threaten snow and yet more snow. Although a fitful sun struggles through, the eerie light on the castle's yellow walls and steely tipped towers seems to come more from the moon than the sun.
The tiny people skating on the ice seem insignificant against the building's imposing presence -- they are little more than silhouettes, skating, sledging and playing kolf, the forerunner of golf, in the semi-dark. The opposite is true of the paintings of Hendrick Avercamp -- like A Scene on the Ice near a Town and A Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle -- where the buildings are a background for dozens of tiny skaters whose clothes and activities are painted with exquisite detail.
Muiden Castle was one of the oldest and most important medieval castles in early seventeenth-century Holland, and Beerstraaten treats the painting as a dramatic portrait of the ancient building rather than as a skating scene. Seen from the north-east, the image is accurate and atmospheric, with the tiny skaters simply an enlivening motif. The artist has, however, altered the arrangement of the rest of the landscape to suit the painting's composition. In reality, from the north-east the sea would appear behind the castle, but Beerstraaten needed the reflected light to pick out the front of the building and take the eye into the distance beyond it. You can see a view of the castle from the west, albeit in the distance, in Fishermen near Muiden Castle.
Probably built in the early fourteenth century for Count Floris V of Holland, the castle is about seven miles from Amsterdam, at the entry of the Vecht river into the Zuiderzee. It came into its own in the early seventeenth century when it was the home of Pieter Cornelisz. Hooft, a famous Dutch poet and historian. It became the cultural centre of the Dutch Republic: eminent poets, composers and statesmen would gather there to debate, play music and declaim their poetry, a group that became known as the Muiderkring ('The Muider Circle'). Among these was Constantijn Huygens, whose talents were many -- poet, musician, designer: the quintessential Renaissance man. His portrait by Thomas Keyser is in the National Gallery's collection.
Hooft died in 1647, some seven years before the picture was painted. The glittering life within the castle's walls disappeared and it fell into disrepair until it was saved from demolition in 1825. It was opened as a national museum in 1878 and you can still see it today, the building and its gardens both fully restored. | The heavy, black clouds that hang low over the castle seem to threaten snow and yet more snow. Although a fitful sun struggles through, the eerie light on the castle's yellow walls and steely tipped towers seems to come more from the moon than the sun. The tiny people skating on the ice seem insignificant against the building's imposing presence.
Muiden Castle was one of the oldest and most important medieval castles in early seventeenth-century Holland, and Beerstraaten treats the painting almost as a portrait of the ancient building. We see it from the north-east, accurate and atmospheric, although Beerstraaten has altered the arrangement of the landscape to suit the picture's composition. Looking from the north-east the sea would be behind the castle, but the artist needed the reflected light to pick out the front of the building and take the eye into the distance beyond it. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FGL-0001-0000-0000 | Barely a third of van Goyen's painting of life on the ice in seventeenth-century Dordrecht shows people; the rest is sky. But he still manages to pack the picture full of incident and humour. Some people squeeze into horse-drawn sledges -- the large one close to us is signed van Goyen and dated on the back panel -- while others zoom across the ice or stand around and chat. Some play kolf, the forerunner of golf -- or miss their shot and fall over, watched by an unhelpful dog.
The air is still with a mist of frost and yet the picture seems to move -- a skirt flaps, a hat skids on the ice, legs kick in the air. We know which of the skaters is practised and moving at speed and which are beginners, clinging on, their bodies tense. Facial expressions are shown with a flick of the brush.
The large building on the right is the Riedijk water gate, outside Dordrecht. Further away across the frozen Merwede river, on the left, stands Merwede Castle, already a ruin by van Goyen's time. These same ruins appear in Peasants and Cattle by the River Merwede by Aelbert Cuyp. For other skating pictures, look at Hendrick Avercamp's A Scene on the Ice near a Town and A Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle. | Barely a third of van Goyen's painting of life on the ice in seventeenth-century Dordrecht shows people; the rest is sky. But he still manages to pack the picture full of incident and humour. Some people squeeze into horse-drawn sledges, while others zoom across the ice or stand and chat. Some play kolf, the forerunner of golf -- or miss their shot and fall over, watched by an unhelpful dog.
The air is still with a mist of frost and yet the picture seems to move -- a skirt flaps, a hat skids on the ice, legs kick in the air. We know which of the skaters is practiced and moving at speed and which are beginners, clinging on, their bodies tense.
The large building on the right is the Riedijk water gate, outside Dordrecht. Further away across the frozen Merwede river, on the left, stands Merwede Castle, already a ruin by van Goyen's time. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FD8-0001-0000-0000 | Duccio was the leading artist in the Tuscan city of Siena. He developed a style known for its grace, fluid lines and harmonious colouring. He is one of the most significant artists of the fourteenth century, who animated Byzantine models to create humane depictions of holy figures.
This is a triptych, a painting made up of three sections. The two smaller panels -- Saint Dominic on the left and Saint Aurea on the right -- can fold inwards to cover and protect the central image of the Virgin and Child. This was essential as the triptych was most probably designed as a portable altarpiece for private prayer while travelling.
The Virgin Mary's long, slim fingers frame the Christ Child's tiny feet. Here Christ, still an infant, plays with his mother's veil which is bordered with decorative gold lettering. His robe is purple, a colour reserved for the ruling elite from the time of Christ’s birth, used here to emphasise his divinity and importance for Christians. The delicately decorated haloes have been made by using a sharp tool to indent the soft gold leaf of the background. The four angels who enter the scene on either side emphasise the devotional nature of the image: the lower two clasp their hands in prayer, while the upper two waft the holy figures with incense contained within thuribles -- perfume burners swung on chains.
Saint Dominic wears the white robe and black cape worn by the preaching friars of the religious order that he founded in the thirteenth century. The star above his left shoulder may refer to the legend that at his baptism his godmother saw a bright star appear on his forehead. Saint Aurea is dressed in a gold-edged pink cloak over a green dress; her right hand is raised in blessing and in her left she carries a blue cross.
Once the two side panels were closed, the only clue to how the triptych was used was the pointed gable which remained uncovered. Its central focus is King David, regarded as the greatest King of Israel. He is surrounded by key figures and prophets of the Old Testament including Abraham, Moses, Jacob and Isaiah, who carry scrolls inscribed with extracts of their prophecies. Their presence offers a clue to the image of the Virgin and Child within: the prophets foretold that a king greater than David would emerge in Israel. New Testament writers associated Christ -- a spiritual, rather than earthly king -- with this figure.
It is likely that Duccio made this triptych for Niccolò degli Albertini da Prato, who became Cardinal Bishop of the Roman port city of Ostia in 1303. Records show that he owned three such portable altarpieces. The Cardinal was probably involved in choosing the images, which explains the inclusion of Saint Aurea, the patron saint of Ostia, and Saint Dominic, since he himself belonged to the Dominican order. X-ray images show that a leather strap once held the triptych closed for travelling and that the reverse of the side panels bore the Cardinal's coat of arms. | Duccio was the leading artist of fourteenth-century Siena. His style is characterised by elegant, flowing lines, soft colours and tender representations of the divine. Here, the Virgin’s cloak is defined by a fluid gold hem. Mother and child share an affectionate gaze as the infant Christ plays with her white veil.
The central panel is flanked by two smaller panels -- depicting Saint Dominic on the left and Saint Aurea on the right -- which can fold inwards to cover and protect the main image. This was essential as it was most probably designed as a portable temporary altarpiece for private prayer while travelling.
The painting was made for Niccolò degli Albertini da Prato who became Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, near Rome, in 1303. This would explain the inclusion of Saint Aurea, the patron saint of Ostia, and Dominic, for the Cardinal was himself a member of the religious order that Dominic founded in the thirteenth century. | [
"Gothic",
"early Renaissance"
] | [
"Gothic",
"Early Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FN5-0001-0000-0000 | This small picture is based on an altarpiece Giovanni Battista Tiepolo made in about 1742 for a church in Padua. The altarpiece, which is still in situ, is dedicated to Saints Maximus and Oswald, though only the figure of Saint Maximus is the same in both.
These two saints don't often appear in eighteenth-century art, but here they reflect a strong local tradition. Saint Maximus, draped in an exquisite embroidered robe and with his finger tips gently pressed together, was Padua's second bishop; he died around AD 195. Saint Oswald, seated on the right in gleaming armour, was King of Northumbria in England. Born in about AD 603, he died fighting the pagan ruler of neighbouring Mercia. He became a martyr and was famed mainly as a protector against the plague -- it seems there was a cult associated with him in Northern Italy.
Saint Oswald's usual attribute of a black raven is missing here but it is included in the main altarpiece, which suggests that Tiepolo did not intend this sketch to be an exact copy of the altarpiece's composition. The saint glances towards the cherubs descending on clouds from the ceiling of the loggia (open-sided gallery or room); one carries a golden crown, perhaps to symbolise the divinity of these figures. A young man with a palm branch tucked into his clothing -- a reference to eternal life -- kneels beside Maximus, while another boy stands in the shadows holding the bishop's staff and mitre.
The National Gallery owns several oil sketches by Tiepolo that relate to finished altarpieces, like Saint Augustine, Louis of France, John the Evangelist and a Bishop Saint and A Vision of the Trinity appearing to Pope Saint Clement. Each of these scenes is framed by an arched building or loggia, which draws our eye towards the carefully arranged figures set against a bright and airy background. The architecture places us at a lower level than the painted figures, as we would be in devotion. | This small picture is based on an altarpiece Tiepolo made in about 1742 for a church in Padua. The altarpiece, which is still in situ, is dedicated to Saints Maximus and Oswald, though only the figure of Saint Maximus is the same in both.
Saint Maximus, the second bishop of Padua, is shown here draped in an exquisite embroidered robe and with his fingertips gently pressed together. Saint Oswald, in gleaming armour, was King of Northumbria in England; he died fighting the pagan ruler of neighbouring Mercia.
A young man with a palm branch tucked into his clothing -- a reference to eternal life -- kneels beside Maximus and glances towards the cherubs descending from the ceiling of the loggia (open-sided gallery or room). The architecture draws our eye towards the carefully arranged group of figures set against a bright and airy background. | [
"baroque",
"rococo"
] | [
"Baroque",
"Rococo"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FGC-0001-0000-0000 | This is one of a series of four paintings by Veronese that concern the trials and rewards of love, although their precise meanings remain unclear. The titles are not original and were given to the paintings in 1727. The compositions are designed to be seen from below, so we know the pictures were intended for a ceiling or a series of ceilings.
The paintings are recorded in 1648 in the collection of the Holy Roman Emperor in Prague. We do not know who commissioned them, but it is most likely that the Four Allegories of Love were made for an Italian patron and were still in Italy in the 1620s, when Van Dyck recorded two of the compositions in his Italian sketchbook.
It is possible that the series of paintings was made for the parallel suites of rooms of a husband and wife in a Venetian palace, two of the paintings for the reception room and bedchamber of the man and two for the equivalent rooms of his spouse. This painting and Happy Union seem particularly intended for a female viewer.
In this painting, titled Unfaithfulness, a naked woman with her back to the viewer sits between two clothed men, exchanging a letter with one of them. It is not clear whether she is giving the letter to him or he is passing it to her. It is inscribed with red letters which appear to spell either ‘che / uno possede', meaning ‘which one person possesses’, or Ch.. / mi. p(ossede), meaning 'which/who possesses me' -- the dots indicating illegible letters. The inscription may mean ‘she who has one man (should be satisfied)’ or possibly ‘she who has one lover (will always want another)’.
A child, similar to that in Happy Union, holds the woman by the leg, while Cupid plays music on a clavichord. The child's pose echoes that of the woman. Cupid stands beside the courtly young man with whom the woman is exchanging the note. The woman is physically held by the child and the man on the right, although her attention is drawn to the music-making Cupid, and her other hand is joined with that of her lover on the left, around the letter that passes between them. The sinuous shape of her arms is echoed in the twisting tree trunks.
This painting seems intended for a female audience and to perhaps pair with Happy Union, although none of the men are the same. Even if this picture represents indecision in courtship rather than marital deceit, there is nothing within the picture to express disapproval.
The green drapery over the woman's thigh and buttocks may have been added for the sake of decency, weakening the composition. The blue pigment smalt used for the sky in all four paintings has turned grey. The russet-coloured jacket and boots of the bearded lover have lost much of the original modelling on account of the degraded pigments, and the colour of Cupid’s wings has changed. | This is one of a series of four paintings by Veronese that concern the trials and rewards of love, although their precise meanings remain unclear. The compositions are designed to be seen from below, so we know the pictures were intended for a ceiling or a series of ceilings.
A naked woman with her back to the viewer sits between two clothed men, exchanging a note with one of them. It is inscribed with red letters which appear to spell either ‘che / uno possede’, meaning ‘which one person possesses’, or Ch.. / mi. p(ossede) meaning 'which/who possesses me' -- the dots indicating illegible letters. The inscription may mean ‘she who has one man (should be satisfied)’ or possibly ‘she who has one lover (will always want another)’.
Even if this picture represents indecision in courtship rather than marital deceit, there is nothing within it to express disapproval. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FWG-0001-0000-0000 | Two women gather sticks by a watery clearing in front of a group of trees. The trees are arranged in an arc, with the most prominent left of centre and the others set back on each side. This is a composition habitually used by Diaz in his views of the forest of Fontainebleau. As with his Common with Stormy Sunset, it shows the influence of Théodore Rousseau, in particular paintings such as The Pond (1842–3, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims).
The women, one in a white blouse and cap and red shawl, provide a decorative element, rather in the manner of Corot's red-capped figures, adding a note of colour to the pervading green of the landscape. According to restrictions reinstated in 1848–9, women and children were only allowed to gather wood from December to February, but the season depicted here is almost certainly spring. The whole is very thickly painted, with many layers and a degree of impasto, which may be because Diaz was emulating such Dutch seventeenth-century landscapists as Ruisdael. The trees are built up from dark to light, giving depth and three-dimensionality. The foliage is picked out with numerous touches of light paint, which gives an effect of dancing light. The trees are painted directly over the sky, and Diaz has broken up the greens of the foliage with final touches of blue paint to create a more dappled appearance. | Two women gather sticks by a watery clearing in front of a group of trees. The trees are arranged in an arc, with the most prominent left of centre and the others set back on each side. The composition, which shows the influence of Théodore Rousseau, is typical of those used by Diaz in his views of the forest of Fontainebleau. The women, one in a white blouse and cap and red shawl, provide a decorative element, rather in the manner of Corot’s figures, adding a note of colour to the pervading green of the landscape.
The whole has many thick layers of paint, which may be because Diaz was emulating such Dutch seventeenth-century landscapists as Ruisdael. The trees are built up from dark to light, giving depth and three-dimensionality. The foliage is picked out with numerous touches of light paint, which gives an effect of dancing light. | [
"Barbizon"
] | [
"Barbizon"
] | [
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FM0-0001-0000-0000 | An unidentified woman and boy kneel in prayer before the Virgin and Child with saints in a landscape. The white-bearded and bald saint on the right is Saint Joseph. The flowering rod he holds represents the staff that broke into blossom to show he was chosen to marry the Virgin Mary, as told in the Golden Legend. With his left hand he presents the kneeling boy, who looks up in prayer. The boy's distinctive appearance, with rounded cheeks and a fuzz of chestnut curls, suggests that this is a portrait of a particular child.
On the left, Saint Lucy, the bearer of light, holds a martyr's palm in one hand and a burning oil lamp in the other. She is more usually shown in paintings with her eyes on a small dish, as she is the protector of sight and, in some accounts of her martyrdom, had her eyes gouged out.
The woman in an ornamented dress and cloak kneels below Saint Lucy with her hands clasped in prayer, gazing at the infant Christ. She is probably the mother of the kneeling boy. The Virgin turns towards her, and places her right hand on the woman's shoulder. The light around the woman's head suggests she is supposed to be a saint, but it may not be original. The mother and son are probably the donors of the painting. The haloes rendered as glowing light with numerous concentric but broken lines are characteristic of paintings from Ferrara, but are not found in any signed or documented work by Cariani and may be later additions.
The composition is derived from Camillo Boccaccino's altarpiece in Cremona Cathedral, commissioned in 1533, showing the Virgin and Child with Saints Martha, Mary Magdalene, James and Anthony Abbot. The altarpiece is now lost, but known from copies and a print. The artist's dependence on this source may explain the features that are uncharacteristic of Cariani, such as the softness of the drapery, Christ's sprawling pose and the facial appearance of Saint Joseph.
The Boccaccino altarpiece was taller than it was wide, whereas this painting is wider than it is tall. The horizontal format showing kneeling donors recommended by saints to the Virgin and Child in a landscape is typical of Venetian sixteenth-century painting. Although originally from Bergamo, Cariani lived in Venice from 1508, returning to work in Bergamo in 1517--21 and then again during periods in the 1520s and in about 1541. If the painting is by Cariani it must be a very late work, possibly from the 1540s.
Some of the colours in the painting have probably changed over time. The drapery over Saint Lucy's shoulders which is now brown and brick red may originally have been green shot with rose, and the arabesque pattern of the dress of the praying woman which is now dark brown was probably once green. The painting was flattened and scorched when the picture was relined during restoration, possibly carried out during the eighteenth century, and much discoloured varnish was ingrained in the surface of the picture in the process. | An unidentified woman and boy kneel in prayer before the Virgin and Child with saints in a landscape. Saint Lucy, the bearer of light, holds a martyr's palm and a burning oil lamp. The woman, wearing an ornamented dress and cloak, is probably the mother of the kneeling boy presented by Saint Joseph. The flowering rod Saint Joseph holds represents the staff that broke into blossom to show he was chosen to marry the Virgin Mary.
The light around the woman's head suggests she is supposed to be a saint, but it may not be original. The mother and son are probably the donors of the painting.
This picture is possibly by Cariani although it is not entirely typical of his work. The composition is derived from Camillo Boccaccino's altarpiece in Cremona Cathedral, commissioned in 1533, showing the Virgin and Child with Saints Martha, Mary Magdalene, James and Anthony Abbot, which is now lost. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0G0B-0001-0000-0000 | Frans van Mieris painted this tiny self portrait three days before he turned 39 in 1674. By this time, he was a highly successful artist in his home city of Leiden. His work was bought, sometimes for vast sums, by the wealthy of the city but also by nobility from abroad, including the Medici, the ruling family of Florence.
Perhaps for this reason, van Mieris chose to show himself in the Italian version of the costume of one of the characters from the commedia dell'arte that originated in Italy. This was, and still is, a rumbustious form of physical theatre, in which the actors sing, mime, dance, play music, tell bawdy jokes, perform acrobatic feats and rough and often rude knock about. Originally played in the streets, by the seventeenth century it had evolved in two ways: one form continued as popular street theatre, the other became a more sophisticated version performed in private venues. In van Mieris's Dutch Republic, this would have been a Chamber of Rhetoric -- precursors of theatres -- where plays of all kinds were put on and poetry recited. Comedies were the preferred form of drama and judging by van Mieris's expression in the picture, one he would have enjoyed too.
Van Mieris may or may not have acted in the commedia himself, but his gorgeous costume in this painting would perhaps align him with the more refined version. His painting technique was certainly refined, so meticulous that brushmarks in his pictures are almost universally invisible. The assured painting of the elegant velvet cloak gleaming in the light contrasts with the delicate handling of the lace collar and with the white fabric and brocade ribbons of his huge puffball sleeves. The costume and his nonchalant pose, leaning on a balustrade looking back at us to invite us to share his fun, appear to be that of Ottavio, one of the lovers in the commedia. Van Mieris plays the cittern -- a stringed instrument from medieval times -- though the character is more often shown playing a flute or a guitar. Ottavio would have used these to serenade the woman he loved.
Ottavio's feathered hat is precariously balanced on the balustrade, adding to the whimsical, informal nature of the picture. Next to it is a glass, sparkling in the light, delicate and fragile, painted with great skill, and half full -- for van Mieris, a wine glass would never have been half empty. There are several accounts of his heavy drinking, and in spite of the huge amounts he earned in his lifetime, he left very little when he died. He had no problem with showing his face ageing, the cheeks becoming slack and, in other portraits, red nosed and flushed. Popular and gregarious, he painted himself in many guises: in Turkish costume, as a cavalier, in a velvet hat with a twirly handlebar moustache and, most tellingly, as a jolly drunkard -- mostly smiling and always with laughing eyes, inviting us to share his appetite for life. | Frans van Mieris painted this tiny self portrait three days before he turned 39 in 1674. By this time, he was highly successful. His work was bought, sometimes for vast sums, by nobility from abroad, including the Medici, the ruling family of Florence. Perhaps for this reason, van Mieris chose to show himself in the Italian version of the gorgeous costume of a character from the commedia dell'arte that originated in Italy.
His feathered hat is precariously balanced on the balustrade, adding to the whimsical, informal nature of the picture. Next to it is a glass, half full -- for van Mieris, a wine glass would never have been half empty: there are several accounts of his heavy drinking. He shows his face ageing and, in other portraits, red-nosed and flushed. Popular and gregarious, he painted himself in many guises, most tellingly as a jolly drunkard -- mostly smiling and always with laughing eyes, inviting us to share his appetite for life. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F0B-0001-0000-0000 | Mars, the god of war, is presented with a choice as he marches away from the temple of Janus, the two-headed god who presided over war and peace. Should he continue forward into war, or should he show mercy and retreat? Figures representing different aspects of war and peace surround Mars, encouraging him to follow their example.
Alecto, one of the three goddesses of vengeance (known as the Furies), pulls Mars onwards. She urges him on with crazed eyes and holds a fiery torch to light the way in the advancing darkness. In contrast, Mars’ beautiful lover Venus, the goddess of love, is illuminated with clear sunlight. She attempts to restrain him by grasping his muscular arm. Mars turns his head to look at her, tempted by her great beauty, but the rest of his body stays firm and his sword and shield are thrust forcefully onwards.
On the left of the scene, a dishevelled woman symbolising Europe throws her arms up in distress at the prospect of war, her eyes sore from crying. Below, a child struggles to carry the abandoned orb of rule, representing her lost authority. Three more nude children encourage Venus, including golden-haired, winged Cupid, identified by the arrows at his feet, and baby Asclepius, god of healing, identified by the symbol for medicine: a rod with a snake twisted round it. Together, the young children represent the innocent who would flourish in peacetime, but will be vulnerable to the dangers that war brings.
On the right side of the painting, the realities of war are laid bare: the monsters of Plague and Famine bring a black cloud into the sky, and in the distance raging fires appear to burn. Under them writhe a cowering mass of bodies representing the joys of peacetime -- Harmony, Fecundity, Maternity and Charity. Harmony, represented by a woman with an overturned lute and an unravelling pearl headdress, looks anxiously up at the advancing Mars, as does Maternity, who clutches her baby, Fecundity. Charity, represented by an old man, has toppled over in the disorder. Between Venus’ and Mars' legs we can see that one victim of war has already been trampled to death. The god's foot crushes an open book, signifying that the written word of the law -- both temporal or spiritual -- is disregarded in wartime, just as learning and the liberal arts are stifled.
Yet, despite the artist’s convincing illustration of the horrors of war, contemporary viewers would have known that war is in Mars' nature, and that even the tempting persuasions of his lover, Venus, will not be enough to stop him. Having already prayed at the Temple of Janus, it seems his mind is made up.
This is a reduced copy after a painting by Rubens now in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. It follows an earlier picture Rubens painted on the subject of peace and war, now in the National Gallery's collection, which has an altogether more positive outcome than the present work: Minerva protects Pax from Mars. | Mars, the god of war, is presented with a choice. Should he continue his march into war, or should he show mercy and retreat? Figures representing the different qualities of war and peace surround him, encouraging him to follow their example. Alecto, one of the three goddesses of vengeance (known as the Furies), pulls him onwards, while Venus, the goddess of love, attempts to restrain him.
On the left, a woman symbolising Europe throws her arms up in distress at the prospect of war. On the right, the realities of war are laid bare: the monsters of Plague and Famine breathe fire over a cowering mass of bodies personifying the joys of peacetime -- Harmony, Fecundity, Maternity and Charity. Despite the artist’s convincing illustration of the horrors of war, contemporary viewers would have known that war is in Mars’ nature, and that even the tempting persuasions of his lover, Venus, will not be enough to stop him. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FTE-0001-0000-0000 | The composition derives from a print of 1624 by Paulus Pontius, made after a portrait of the same date by Rubens of Prince Vladislav Sigismond, later King of Poland. We can tell that the artist has used the print as a source because some of the details -- as on the hilt of the sword -- are slightly different from the painting by Rubens.
The artist copied the posture of the body and many details of the clothing from the print, but placed a different head on the sitter’s shoulders. The sitter here is unknown. The coat of arms is of the Waha family of the Southern Netherlands but it and the inscription are later additions and not necessarily connected with the portrait.
The painting was attributed first to Rubens and then to Jacob Jordaens. Now it is thought to be by an unknown Flemish contemporary who was influenced by Rubens. | The composition derives from a print of 1624 by Paulus Pontius, made after a portrait of the same date by Rubens of Prince Vladislav Sigismond, later King of Poland. We can tell that the artist has used the print as a source because some of the details -- as on the hilt of the sword -- are slightly different from the painting by Rubens.
The artist copied the posture of the body and many details of the clothing from the print, but placed a different head on the sitter’s shoulders. The sitter here is unknown. The coat of arms is of the Waha family of the Southern Netherlands but it and the inscription are later additions and not necessarily connected with the portrait.
The painting was attributed first to Rubens and then to Jacob Jordaens. Now it is thought to be by an unknown Flemish contemporary who was influenced by Rubens. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F7C-0001-0000-0000 | Pictures of mysterious characters dressed in exotic clothing against a background of dangerously steep mountains and distant castles were very popular in seventeenth-century Flanders. The idea of the romantic wanderer caught the imagination, and inspired attractive narrative paintings that were open to interpretation.
Here, a group of nomads have stopped to rest on a bleak mountainside; one of them reads the palm of a passing peasant. We are left wondering if the little boy in the purple jacket is with the peasant or the fortune teller, and what he's doing. A second man already disappears over the brow of the pathway, perhaps keen to avoid such interruption to his journey.
The painting is probably an early work by the highly successful genre painter David Teniers the Younger. It was later used as a design for a tapestry by J. van Bortch, in which the figures are seen in reverse. | Pictures of mysterious characters dressed in exotic clothing against a background of dangerously steep mountains and distant castles were very popular in seventeenth-century Flanders. The idea of the romantic wanderer caught the imagination, and inspired attractive narrative paintings that were open to interpretation.
Here, a group of nomads have stopped to rest on a bleak mountainside; one of them reads the palm of a passing peasant. We are left wondering if the little boy in the purple jacket is with the peasant or the fortune teller, and what he's doing. A second man already disappears over the brow of the pathway, perhaps keen to avoid such interruption to his journey.
The painting is probably an early work by the highly successful genre painter David Teniers the Younger. It was later used as a design for a tapestry by J. van Bortch, in which the figures are seen in reverse. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F22-0001-0000-0000 | This idyllic Italian garden with its elegant figures, classical sculptures and tall, slender Mediterranean trees is a product of Frederick de Moucheron’s imagination. As far as we know he had never visited Italy, but the picture is probably based on drawings and sketches by artists who had.
Dutch garden design at this time was much more formal than what we see in this painting: de Moucheron gives the impression of a tamed area that has been hewn out of a much wilder landscape. It’s a small oasis in a forest of trees, including tall cypresses and a Roman pine. The hillside rises on the right, untamed, behind the garden, and on the left a stone balustrade indicates steps that lead down into a valley.
Two life-sized sculptures of Roman goddesses stand on plinths. One of them wears a toga, its carved folds caught by the evening sun. Between them is an orange tree in a stone tub; below is a stone bath, spilling water on to the ground from a pipe in its side. Further to the left is a fountain and beyond it, just visible among the foliage of the woods, is the upper story of a great house. Perhaps the garden belongs to this house and perhaps the elegant figures have come from there.
The people strolling and sitting near the fountain are dressed in clothes fashionable in Holland in the 1660s. Two young peasant women come running up from where the hillside drops away, their white scarves and aprons sparkling in the sun; one waves across to two aristocratic men who idle at the foot of the sculptures. One of the men points at them while looking at his companion. A third man leans over the stone bath, displaying his splendid bright blue breeches and stockings. We don't know what story this tells -- but part of the delight in owning the picture would have been in interpreting and reinterpreting what was going on.
The figures in the painting are the work of Adriaen van de Velde, who frequently painted figures for de Moucheron, and show minute detail of costume, character and activity that brings the atmospheric background to life. At the time it was common for one artist to paint figures for another, not just in Holland but in other European countries as well -- it didn't diminish the quality or value of the painting, but enhanced it. | This idyllic Italian garden with its elegant figures, classical sculptures and tall, slender Mediterranean trees is a product of Frederick de Moucheron’s imagination. As far as we know he never visited Italy, but the picture is probably based on drawings and sketches by artists who had. De Moucheron gives the impression of a tamed area that has been hewn out of a much wilder landscape, with sculptures and a fountain enjoyed by aristocratic people at leisure.
Two young peasant women come running up from where the hillside drops away; one waves across at two aristocratic young men. One of the men points at the women while looking at his companion. A third man leans over the stone bath, displaying his splendid bright blue breeches and stockings. We don't know what story this tells -- but part of the delight in owning the picture would have been in interpreting and reinterpreting what was going on. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FBO-0001-0000-0000 | This view is of the Piazzetta, an area between the Piazza San Marco and the waterfront (known as the Molo). Elegantly dressed Venetians and foreign visitors – like the trio at the bottom right – mill around the square, while government officials in black robes emerge from the Doge's Palace.
Beyond, we see the basilica of San Marco, its slender campanile (bell tower) to the left. The white building on the left is the library; people gather along the colonnade below. The lines of white stone laid across the square mark out the position of temporary market stalls, like those covered with parasols in the distance.
This copy was probably made by one of Canaletto's pupils and is based on a drawing from which he prepared his own pictures. A sketch of a similar view is in the Royal Collection at Windsor. Canaletto painted this composition several times; examples are now at Woburn Abbey and the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena. | This view is of the Piazzetta, an area between the Piazza San Marco and the waterfront (known as the Molo). Elegantly dressed Venetians and foreign visitors -- like the trio at the bottom right -- mill around the square, while government officials in black robes emerge from the Doge's Palace.
Beyond, we see the basilica of San Marco, its slender campanile (bell tower) to the left. The white building on the left is the library; people gather along the colonnade below. The lines of white stone laid across the square mark out the position of temporary market stalls, like those covered with parasols in the distance.
This copy was probably made by one of Canaletto's pupils and is based on a drawing from which he prepared his own pictures. A sketch of a similar view is in the Royal Collection at Windsor. Canaletto painted this composition several times; examples are now at Woburn Abbey and the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena. | [
"baroque",
"rococo"
] | [
"Baroque",
"Rococo"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FWC-0001-0000-0000 | A woman with blue eyes and brown hair kneels at a prayer desk on which is an open book. She wears a black dress, trimmed and lined with brown fur. Her purplish underdress shows at the neckline and is ornamented with a round brooch; under that she wears a transparent chemise decorated in black. Her sleeves and underskirt are pinkish red. She wears rings, and a string of beads hangs from her belt.
We don't know who she is, but she is on the front of the right wing of a triptych (a painting in three parts). Her clothes are in the style of the mid-1520s, and she was once identified by a coat of arms -- of which little now remains -- on the side of her prayer desk. Her husband faces her from the left wing. He was possibly a member of the Bollis family of Sint-Truiden.
In the landscape behind her, Christ rises into the sky. Below him, in a rocky landscape, are three of the soldiers who guarded his tomb: two recoil in terror, while the third sleeps. This is the Resurrection, a continuation of the narrative from the Crucifixion in the central panel.
The style of the triptych links it with the work of Bernaert van Orley and his pupil Pieter Coecke van Aalst, both of whom also included secondary narratives in the backgrounds of their paintings. The painting on the inner wings is comparable to that of a triptych of the Lamentation painted by van Orley during the 1520s for Philippe Haneton (Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels), and with Coecke's triptych for Paul Robyns, apparently painted in the 1530s. The artist of our painting was much less gifted than van Orley or Coecke, however: the donors' faces are badly foreshortened, and their hands are too large, inelegantly posed and inaccurately drawn.
Technical analysis has revealed extensive underdrawing in the wings, and where the paint has become thin this is visible to the naked eye. The underdrawing is confident, rapid and sketchy, and has been quite carefully followed for the donor figures. It gives only an approximation of the landscape and the prayer desks, however. The underdrawing of the background is so sketchy that is it impossible to tell whether the narrative scenes were suggested at all. The Resurrection was painted on top of the landscape. | A woman kneels at prayer desk. We don't know who she is; she was once identified by a coat of arms -- of which little now remains -- on the side of her prayer desk. The painting is on the front of the right wing of a triptych (a painting in three parts). Her husband, possibly a member of the Bollis family of Sint-Truiden, faces her from the left wing.
In the landscape behind her, Christ rises into the sky. Below him, in a rocky landscape, are three of the soldiers who guarded his tomb: two recoil in terror, while the third sleeps. This is the Resurrection, a continuation of the narrative from the Crucifixion in the central panel.
The style of the triptych links it with the work of Bernaert van Orley and his pupil Pieter Coecke van Aalst -- both also included secondary narratives in the backgrounds of their paintings -- though its artist was much less gifted than them. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FMG-0001-0000-0000 | The sumptuous silks worn by the woman in this painting distract from its actual subject. You might identify this as a portrait of a seventeenth-century noblewoman, until you notice the sword in her lowered right hand. The richly dressed figure is in fact Judith, the hero of one of the Old Testament’s deuterocanonical books, although it might be a portrait of a young woman in her guise.
The Book of Judith (13: 6--10) recounts the narrative pictured in the shadows of van der Neer’s small painting, as it unfolds on the right side: Judith seduced the Assyrian general Holofernes after a lavish banquet and waited for him to pass out in a drunken slumber. She instructed her maid to wait outside the tent where she and Holofernes would spend the night, then, at the right moment, took the general’s sword, which hung from the bedpost. Exclaiming ‘Give me strength today, O Lord God of Israel’, she struck Holofernes’ neck twice, cutting off his head. The maid was given the decapitated head and placed it in her food bag.
Van der Neer’s depiction of the climax of this violent episode is surprisingly bloodless. The maid’s downturned head is partly visible in the shadows behind Judith’s left arm. The group is apparently not inside a tent: behind the maid is a space that looks like a church interior, with a column and a stained-glass window visible. Below Judith’s arm, the lifeless head -- dangling from its hair -- is about to be lowered into a sack. Almost hidden from view is Holofernes’ headless body, lying on the bed in the left background.
Judith’s heroic act saved the Israelites from the troops of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, and the episodes related to Holofernes became a favourite subject to many artists, especially from the fifteenth century onward. But for van der Neer, the Old Testament story seems to have been of secondary importance. His primary aim in this picture seems to have been the rendering of materials, in which he was an expert. Silks, brocade, velvet, metalwork and pearls take centre stage, and the artist paid special attention to Judith’s dress and Holofernes’ feathered helmet on the table beside her. If this is indeed a portrait, the sitter clearly wanted to show off her material possessions.
Van der Neer’s models in portraying materials realistically were the paintings of his countrymen Gerard ter Borch and Frans van Mieris, and less so his father and teacher, the landscape painter Aert van der Neer. Eglon’s versatility and skill would ultimately lead to an appointment as court painter under Johann Wilhelm II, Elector Palatine, in 1698, about two decades after he painted this picture. | A lavishly dressed young woman lights up Eglon van der Neer's picture, her sumptuous silk and brocade dress contrasting strongly with the dark background. Decorated with pearls, it seems to be the star of the show. But a longer look at the painting reveals a sword in the woman's right hand and, more gruesomely, a second figure lowering a head into a bag. Van der Neer has portrayed this young woman as Judith, the Old Testament heroine who famously seduced and decapitated Holofernes, the Assyrian general who was leading an attack on her town.
Judith’s heroism and beauty would have made her an obvious role model for the sitter, who decided to have herself portrayed in her guise. Van der Neer, however, seems to have been more occupied with capturing the qualities of the woman's dress than with the biblical story’s narrative elements. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0G4C-0001-0000-0000 | Michelangelo painted a panel picture of Leda and the swan for Alfonso I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara. The Duke had recently received the Worship of Venus (Prado, Madrid), Bacchus and Ariadne, and the Bacchanal of the Andrians (Prado, Madrid) from Titian. In accepting the commission, Michelangelo was competing directly with Titian, and he completed the painting by October 1530. The exact size of the painting is not known but Condivi, Michelangelo’s later biographer, says it was very large.
However, after falling out with the Duke’s representative, Michelangelo gave both the painting and its cartoon to his pupil, Antonio Mini, who took them with him to France. Neither the cartoon nor the painting survived, although we know the composition from a detailed engraving by Cornelis Bos. Only one detailed study by Michelangelo survives -- a drawing in red chalk of a youth’s head bending forwards (Casa Buonarotti, Florence), which appears to be about half the size of the original painting.
The National Gallery’s picture is an old copy, made after the original painting or its cartoon, and is very badly damaged in places. In it we see the Greek god Zeus in the form of a swan seducing Leda. According to legend, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, and, at the same time, Castor and Clytemnestra, the children of her husband Tyndareus, King of Sparta. The hatchlings Castor and Polydeuces were included in Michelangelo's original composition. Leda's pose seems to derive from sarcophagus reliefs and gems, and is similar to that of Michelangelo’s marble Night (Medici Chapel, Florence) completed in 1531.
Titian's Danäe (Capodimonte, Naples) appears to have been made in response to Michelangelo’s Leda. Where Michelangelo’s Leda seems akin to a hard-edged marble relief sculpture, Titian’s Danäe is meltingly voluptuous, emphasising colour and light. Michelangelo saw the Danäe in Rome in 1545, praising its colouring, naturalness and power to entrance but criticising the draughtsmanship.
It is possible that the National Gallery’s painting may be a copy made from Michelangelo’s original cartoon by Rosso Fiorentino; the Italian patron of the arts, Cassiano del Pozzo, on his visit to Fontainebleau in 1625 spoke of a Leda there by Rosso painted after a drawing by Michelangelo. At the end of the seventeenth century it was said that the original was burnt by Des Noyers, Superintendant of Fontainebleau, on the grounds of indecency. We have no evidence whether this was the case.
When the Duke of Northumberland presented this painting to the National Gallery in 1838, he stated that it was not suitable for public exhibition. For this reason it does not appear in any National Gallery catalogue published before 1915. | This is an old copy, badly damaged in places, of a now lost painting that Michelangelo made for Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1530. The Duke had recently received three mythological paintings from Titian, including the National Gallery's Bacchus and Ariadne, so in accepting the commission Michelangelo was competing directly with Titian.
Here the Greek god Zeus in the form of a swan seduces Leda, Queen of Sparta. Her pose seems to derive from sarcophagus reliefs and gems, and is similar to that of Michelangelo’s marble Night (Medici Chapel, Florence) completed in 1531.
Titian's Danäe (Capodimonte, Naples), in turn, appears to have been made in response to Michelangelo’s Leda. Where Michelangelo’s Leda seems akin to a hard-edged marble relief sculpture, Titian’s Danäe is meltingly voluptuous, emphasising colour and light. Michelangelo saw the Danäe in Rome in 1545, praising its colouring, naturalness and power to entrance but criticising the draughtsmanship. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0ETJ-0001-0000-0000 | This scene is based on a passage in the Gospel of Luke (2:22-40), which describes Mary and Joseph’s visit to the temple in Jerusalem for the rituals of Mary’s purification and of the infant Christ's presentation to God. In conformity with Jewish law, all women had to be ritually purified forty days after giving birth, while first-born sons were to be presented and redeemed by an offering to God. The priest, Simeon, is shown receiving the infant from Mary in front of an elaborate altar. The two turtle doves held by a woman at the left were brought as the sacrificial offering to secure Christ’s redemption.
Simeon was the first to recognise Christ’s divinity after the latter’s birth. Upon seeing the child, the priest said: ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation’ (Luke 2: 29–30). The Old Testament scenes visible on the carved stone altarpiece and on the back of Simeon’s embroidered cope underscore the theological significance of the event, as they were deemed to foreshadow Christ's Passion. The altarpiece shows Cain slaying his brother Abel, the sacrifice of Isaac, and the drunkenness of Noah, while the embroidery of Simeon’s cope depicts the Roman Emperor Augustus’s vision of the Virgin and Child during which he -- a pagan -- recognised that their spiritual power was greater than his. The small boys cast in bronze who hold up the altar may be references to pagan art, and reinforce the message of the cope by illustrating that paganism was surpassed by Judaism and Christianity.
The painting once formed part of an altarpiece made for the church of Saint Ursula in Cologne, consisting of scenes of the life of the Virgin Mary. Seven other panels are today in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The work was commissioned by Johann von Hirtz, an alderman and mayor of the city.
The centre panel of the altarpiece consisted of four scenes arranged in a square grid – The Presentation in the Temple appeared in the lower right. It was once thought that the altarpiece took the form of a triptych (a painting composed of three parts) but recent technical analysis has raised the possibility that the panels may have been shown individually or in a different formation to that of a triptych. | The priest Simeon is shown receiving the infant Christ from the Virgin Mary in front of an elaborate altar. The scene is based on a passage in the Gospel of Luke (2:22--40), which describes Mary and Joseph's visit to the temple in Jerusalem for the rituals of Mary’s purification and of Christ’s presentation to God.
Simeon recognised Christ's divinity upon seeing him, saying 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation' (Luke 2: 29--30). The embroidery on his cope shows the Roman Emperor Augustus having a vision of the Virgin and Child -- a decisive experience which made the ruler recognise that their spiritual power was greater than his.
This painting, along with seven other panels now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, once formed part of the central panel of an altarpiece made for the church of Saint Ursula in Cologne. It was commissioned by Dr Johann von Hirtz, a councillor in the city. | [
"Gothic",
"early Renaissance"
] | [
"Gothic",
"Early Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F7B-0001-0000-0000 | By the time Mantegna made this picture -- at the very end of career -- he was well known for his skill in imitating sculpture in paint (a technique he himself had invented). Using just black and white paint applied with the tip of his brush, Mantegna made his figures seem as though they were carved from stone rather than painted.
Renaissance painters were constantly vying with sculptors to produce the most compelling and lifelike works of art. Mantegna has added white paint to the creases of the folded draperies of the figure’s robes, making them appear sharp, as though made of stone, not fabric. At the same time, the gestures and facial expressions are more dramatic and subtle than anything that could be captured in sculpture, Mantegna proving the superiority of his art.
The scene is set against a swirling orange and grey background painted in imitation of polished variegated marble. This type of picture reflected Mantegna's own fascination with the art and culture of ancient Rome, and the fashion for this kind of object among his wealthy clients. This picture is part of a commission from Francesco Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman, for a frieze to decorate a room in his palace. We know from a letter dated 15 March 1505 that Francesco's brother Marco asked the permission of Mantegna's patron, Francesco Gonzaga, to commission the artist to make the series of works required. Each painting was based on classical sources, and together they would celebrate Cornaro's ancestors, the ancient Roman Cornelia family.
In 204 BC the Romans introduced the goddess Cybele to the city for worship; this panel shows the procession that marked her arrival. On the far left we see the goddess -- she is represented by the spherical stone on the litter carried by a group of men as, according to the Roman writer Juvenal, she fell to earth as a meteor. Mantegna also included a sculpted bust of the goddess on this litter; she wears a crown that resembles fortified city walls. According to the Roman writers who recorded this event, she was accompanied by priests from her cult centre in Asia Minor. Mantegna has expressed their exotic backgrounds by dressing them in turbans, and robes over trousers.
This occurred in the final years of the Second Punic War -- the conflict between Rome and Carthage (present-day Tunisia). When a meteorite shower struck Rome, people feared it was a bad omen and consulted the Sibylline Books, an ancient book of prophecies, for advice. The books were interpreted as suggesting that the only way to expel the Carthaginians would be to bring Cybele to Rome and establish a centre for her worship there.
The episode was important for the Cornaro family as their ancestor Publius Scipio Cornelius Nasica was chosen -- as the worthiest man in Rome -- to officially receive the goddess. It's even thought that he hosted her in his home for several days before she was finally installed at her new site of worship. This is underlined by the inscription beneath the image: S HOSPES NUMINIS IDAEI C ('Host to the Idean deity' -- Cybele was worshipped on Mount Ida in Anatolia, modern-day Turkey). SC stands for Senatus Consulto, meaning 'with permission of the Senate'. The litter that bears the goddess passes between two unusually shaped brick structures with Latin inscriptions: the tombs of Scipio's father and uncle, another nod to the Cornelia family.
Mantegna wove together a number of literary sources to create the image. The woman shown wailing on her knees in front of the litter may be Claudia Quinta. According to Ovid's account she miraculously rescued the boat which was carrying the goddess to Rome, which hit ground just outside the port of Ostia near Rome. Claudia Quinta was the only one who could pull it to shore (she argued that the miracle proved her chastity, which had recently been doubted). Once the goddess arrived at the gates of Rome, she was greeted by a group of Roman senators, including Scipio: he may be the figure standing behind who turns to talk to a companion while gesturing towards, but turning his face away from, Claudia.
The large entourage that has arrived to welcome the goddess includes musicians -- the drummer at the far right looks out of the picture, perhaps into another scene; letters reveal that Mantegna planned and prepared another four canvases. However, he completed only this one before his death in 1506, after which Cornaro commissioned Giovanni Bellini to make at least one more (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). The bottom right portion of the painting was originally cut down at an angle, suggesting it might have been placed against a chimney breast. | This picture was part of a classical-style frieze made for Francesco Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman, in celebration of his ancestors, the ancient Roman Cornelia family. Mantegna painted the figures to look as though they are carved from stone, not painted, and set against colourful marble.
In 204 BC the Romans introduced the goddess Cybele to the city for worship. On the far left we see the goddess -- she is represented by the spherical stone on the litter. According to the Roman writer Juvenal, she fell to earth as a meteor. Mantegna has included a sculpted bust of Cybele beside it. Cornaro's ancestor Publius Scipio Cornelius Nasica was chosen -- as the worthiest man in Rome -- to officially receive the goddess.
Mantegna planned and prepared another four canvases, but completed only this one before his death in 1506. Cornaro commissioned Giovanni Bellini to make at least one more (now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F77-0001-0000-0000 | This altarpiece was painted for the high altar of the Francesco de Strata chapel in the church of S. Paolo in Vercelli, a town in northern Italy between Milan and Turin. It was commissioned by Francesco de Strata in 1540 and is signed and dated 1543. The altar was dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene, who appears twice in the painting.
Mary, from Magdala on the shores of Lake Galilee, was a Jewish follower of Christ, who witnessed his crucifixion, burial and resurrection. During the Middle Ages she was confused with the unnamed 'sinful woman' who anoints Jesus's feet in the Gospel of Luke (7: 36–50), resulting in the legend that she was a repentant prostitute. In Lanino’s altarpiece, she stands in the place of honour on the right-hand side of the Virgin and Child, holding the jar of perfumed ointment she used to anoint Christ’s feet. She gazes lovingly at the infant Christ, who touches an apple held by Saint Paul and seems to smile at Mary Magdalene. In the Old Testament of the Bible, the apple is a symbol of sin, referring to Adam and Eve’s expulsion from paradise. Here the apple symbolises Christ’s identity as the second Adam who has come to redeem mankind from sin.
Saint Paul holds the sword with which he was martyred and a paper with an inscription from his letter to the Romans (Romans 5: 1). Only a few words are included but the passage can be identified as: ‘Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The elderly man behind Saint Paul may be the Virgin’s husband Saint Joseph. The bishop saint standing beside Mary Magdalene is Saint Gregory, who Lanino has painted with a highly individual lined and wrinkled face.
Mary Madgalene is included again as one of the tiny figures in the middle distance. Christ appears to her as a gardener, holding a large spade, on the morning after his Resurrection. She reaches out her hand in wonder but he tells her not to touch him ('noli me tangere' in Latin) (John 20: 14--18). The altarpiece originally had a lower section, known as a predella, depicting six events from the life and conversion of Saint Mary Magdalene, but its present whereabouts is unknown.
Lanino may have been the pupil of Gaudenzio Ferrari, then the most important painter in Vercelli. Between 1540 and 1560 Lanino made several trips to Milan where he became influenced by the chiaroscuro (meaning ‘light and dark’) effects in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. Here the fantastical rocky landscape, the facial types of the women and child, as well as the soft smoky quality of the brushwork and the strong contrasts of light and dark are all elements derived from the work of Leonardo. | This altarpiece was commissioned by Francesco de Strata for the high altar of his chapel in the church of S. Paolo in Vercelli. The altar was dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene, who appears twice in the painting. She stands in the place of honour on the right-hand side of the Virgin and Child, holding the jar of perfumed ointment she used to anoint Christ’s feet. The infant Christ touches an apple held by Saint Paul and seems to smile at Mary Magdalene. The apple symbolises Christ’s identity as the second Adam who has come to redeem mankind from sin.
The elderly man may be the Virgin’s husband Saint Joseph, while Saint Gregory is dressed as a bishop. In the middle distance, Christ appears to Mary Magdalene as a gardener on the morning after his Resurrection. The altarpiece originally had a lower section depicting six events from the life and conversion of Saint Mary Magdalene, but its current whereabouts is unknown. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0EWS-0001-0000-0000 | Pintoricchio painted a number of images of the Virgin and Child of a similar size to this one. Their scale, high level of detail and decoration, and the sweetness of the figures made them highly desirable as beautiful objects and as aids for worship in the home.
This one offers a view through an arched stone window into the world of the holy figures -- a wild and expansive landscape of rocky precipices, slender trees and a distant mountain range. Christ is supported by his mother, who bows her head towards him as she delicately grasps his elbow. As a painting made for worship within the household, this was not only an object of devotion but also an example of ideal motherhood and womanhood. The Virgin's gentle downcast gaze is a sign of her modesty and humility, essential virtues for any Renaissance woman.
The Christ Child, on the other hand, looks directly at the viewer, signalling to them that they must pay attention to his gestures. With one hand he lifts his robes to reveal his genitals -- a sign of his true humanity -- proof that he was a child just like those of the woman who would pray before this image. With his other hand, he makes a blessing gesture -- a reminder that despite his humanity he had divine authority from God.
Christ stands on a woven rug; luxury items in the Renaissance, they were never placed on the floor but used as decoration for tables, for example. It is included to show the status of the Virgin and Child but probably also to enrich the decoration of the patron's home, standing in for the real thing. Although Pintoricchio and his studio produced many works like this, the patrons of this image clearly asked him to personalise it for them by including their coat of arms. As it pokes over the window ledge, it broaches the divide between our world and that of the holy figures. Unfortunately, we do not know to which family these arms belong.
The painting was cut down at the top before it joined our collection -- the arch would have continued at the top. Parts of the image were also repainted before the National Gallery acquired it. | Pintoricchio painted a number of images of the Virgin and Child of a similar size to this one. Their scale, high level of detail and decoration, and the sweetness of the figures made them highly desirable as beautiful objects and as aids for worship in the home.
This one offers a view through an arched stone window into the world of the holy figures -- a wild and expansive landscape of rocky precipices, slender trees and a distant mountain range. Christ is supported by his mother, who bows her head towards him as she delicately grasps his elbow. Christ lifts his robes to reveal his genitals -- a sign of his humanity, and proof that he was a child just like those of the woman who would pray before this image. With his other hand he makes a blessing gesture, a reminder of his divine authority. | [
"Gothic",
"early Renaissance"
] | [
"Gothic",
"Early Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FTX-0001-0000-0000 | This portrait was made to hang with one of a woman by the same artist (Oscar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur). They may have been joined together with hinges at the centre, forming a folding set known as a diptych, and were possibly made to commemorate the couple's engagement or marriage. This seems likely as both have flowers associated with marriage: the carnation or pink held by the man was part of a northern European wedding ritual, in which the bride had to hide a pink within her clothing for the groom to find. The woman holds a posy of lily of the valley, which were associated with both marriage and the Virgin Mary.
Like his bride, the man is shown in half-length against a deep blue background; like her, he has bright fair hair and corkscrew curls. His large collar is folded over to reveal its fur lining. The gold detail on his white chemise and the bands of his large rings are matt gilding made from real gold. The expense of the gold and the sumptuousness of the painted fur suggest the man was wealthy and of high status. That said, the middle classes were allowed to wear more extravagant clothing for weddings and wedding portraits than was usually permitted by the laws that governed how the different classes could dress.
The man's skin is painted with strong highlights, particularly around his brows, eyes and on the tip of his nose, imitating the effect of bright light on smooth, pale skin. This illusionism contrasts with the more schematic parts of the picture, such as the regularly sized tight curls and the use of real gold for the jewellery, which has such a different texture to the painted areas. | This portrait was made to hang with one of a woman by the same artist (Oscar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur), possibly to commemorate the couple's engagement or marriage. This seems likely as both are shown with flowers associated with marriage: the carnation or pink held by the man was part of a northern European wedding ritual, in which the bride had to hide a pink within her clothing for the groom to find. The woman holds a posy of lily of the valley, which were associated with both marriage and the Virgin Mary.
Like his bride, the man is shown in half-length against a deep blue background; like her, he has bright fair hair and corkscrew curls. His large collar is folded over to reveal its fur lining. The gold detail on his white chemise and the bands of his large rings is matt gilding made from real gold. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F8N-0001-0000-0000 | Two figures stand and sit in the shadows at the edge of a wood and contemplate an ancient church almost shrouded in trees. Light filters down a pathway between them, giving an eerie feeling to the image. The picture has lost some of its colour and vibrancy, but even so it brings the imagination into play: the atmosphere; the figures in silhouette so we have no idea what they look like; the dark doorways of the church, hardly encouraging entry.
Small enigmatic figures dwarfed by the old buildings they contemplate make a common theme in van Vries's paintings – why is this person here, will he go in through the door, what might happen next? The images seem to invite you to make your own interpretation of the scene, not just once but many times. | Two figures stand and sit in the shadows at the edge of a wood and contemplate an ancient church almost shrouded in trees. Light filters down a pathway between them, giving an eerie feeling to the image. The picture has lost some of its colour and vibrancy, but even so it brings the imagination into play: the atmosphere; the figures in silhouette so we have no idea what they look like; the dark doorways of the church, hardly encouraging entry.
Small enigmatic figures dwarfed by the old buildings they contemplate make a common theme in van Vries's paintings -- why is this person here, will he go in through the door, what might happen next? The images seem to invite you to make your own interpretation of the scene, not just once but many times. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FJE-0001-0000-0000 | This vast vision of heaven and earth was created for the funeral chapel of the Florentine apothecary, writer and politician Matteo Palmieri, who died in 1475. Palmieri and his wife, Niccolosa de' Serragli, are shown kneeling in prayer as they gaze towards the heavenly scene.
Christ sits at the centre of a gilded dome blessing those below. The Virgin Mary, crowned as Queen of Heaven, kneels before him. Below, angelic beings, saints and prophets are arranged in three neat circles. This shape may have been inspired by the architect Brunelleschi’s dome for Florence Cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, which had recently been completed. It also reflects the dome-shaped stage sets created by Brunelleschi to represent the vault of heaven in religious plays, popular in fifteenth-century Florence. The figures surrounding Christ and the Virgin are the six-winged red seraphim, the four-winged blue cherubim and, below them, the bust-length cherubic Thrones, so called because they were the carriers of God’s throne.
The middle sphere includes the Dominions, Virtues and Powers who rule the lower angels, the planets and humankind respectively. Below them are the angelic beings most associated with the earth, the Principalities; the Archangels, who deal with military and commercial matters; and the angels, God’s messengers to humankind. Scattered among the angels are saints and Old Testament figures. Adam and Eve are shown as an elderly couple dressed in animal skins; beneath them sits King David, who was known as a musician, with his lyre. On the left-hand side of the bottom row is Saint George, the warrior saint, dressed in gold armour and a blue mantle.
On a grassy plateau the apostles surround the Virgin’s empty tomb which, according to legend, was filled with lilies after her assumption to heaven. Just as much a feature of the picture is the panorama of the city of Florence, and the surrounding towns and countryside. The river Arno winds though towards Florence, where we see the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. To Palmieri’s left is Fiesole, the hillside summer retreat of wealthy Florentines. Palmieri's own farm and country villa are shown halfway up the slope. The large building that crowns the slope is the Badia Fiesolana, a former convent where the Duke of Florence, Cosimo de' Medici, had granted Palmieri the patronage of a chapel. Just to the right of Palmieri’s eye is the spire of the church of San Pier Maggiore, where Palmieri would be buried and where this painting was installed.
According to Giorgio Vasari, Palmieri was involved in designing the picture. Vasari thought it was by Botticelli, but it is now known to be by his contemporary Botticini, who had illustrated the manuscript of Palmieri’s poem, the Città di Vita (‘City of Life’) in 1465.
The poem was based on Dante’s Divine Comedy which describes the journey of a soul through hell to heaven. Palmieri’s version, however, reverses this journey: the soul descends from the heavenly realm to earth, where it takes on a human form at birth and chooses, with free will, whether it will ascend to heaven or go to hell. The idea of the soul’s existence before birth and its ability to reach paradise without reference to God or Christ were contrary to the authorised teaching of the Church. The faces of Palmieri and his wife were scratched out (now restored) in an attempt to erase their presence and access to the painting was temporarily barred sometime in the decades following his death, when suspicions about the poem were at their height. | Heaven and earth are united in this vast, dramatic scene. A dome-shaped vault has opened up in the sky to reveal Christ blessing the Virgin Mary. She kneels before him, her hands together in prayer. They are surrounded by ranks of neatly ordered angelic beings, saints and Old Testament figures: the ageing couple beneath the Virgin are Adam and Eve, ancestors of the human race according to the Bible, wearing camel-skin robes.
The Virgin has ascended after death to join this place full of clouds and golden light. Her empty tomb below has filled with lilies, to the amazement of the apostles who gather around it. The image is based upon a poem by the Florentine apothecary, writer and politician Matteo Palmieri, who is shown kneeling to the left of the tomb, opposite his wife Niccolosa. The poem described the pre-existence of the soul before birth. As this was considered heretical by some, the couples' faces (now restored) were scratched out in protest. | [
"early Renaissance"
] | [
"Early Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FSJ-0001-0000-0000 | When this small still life was given to the National Gallery in 1888, it was believed to have been painted by Chardin. However, within 20 years there were already doubts about its authenticity.
For a while it was thought that François Bonvin, or one of his contemporaries, had painted the picture, as there had been a revival of interest in Chardin among French artists during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. However, this attribution has also been rejected. Technical examination of the earlier layers of paint indicates that the painting was most likely begun in the eighteenth century, although it may have been completed in the nineteenth century.
As the style, the handling of the paint and the signature are not consistent with confirmed works by Chardin, the painting is now judged to be a skilful pastiche by a sophisticated imitator. | When this small still life was given to the National Gallery in 1888, it was believed to have been painted by Chardin. However, within 20 years there were already doubts about its authenticity.
For a while it was thought that François Bonvin, or one of his contemporaries, had painted the picture, as there had been a revival of interest in Chardin among French artists during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. However, this attribution has also been rejected. Technical examination of the earlier layers of paint indicates that the painting was most likely begun in the eighteenth century, although it may have been completed in the nineteenth century.
As the style, the handling of the paint and the signature are not consistent with confirmed works by Chardin, the painting is now judged to be a skilful pastiche by a sophisticated imitator. | [
"neoclassical"
] | [
"Neoclassical"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F3X-0001-0000-0000 | Dughet's storm paintings were among his most admired works during his lifetime and in the eighteenth century. Two shepherds tending their flock struggle against the wind, their arms raised in alarm as they encourage their sheep to move down the path.
Tree branches bend and twist with the force of the storm. In the centre, a substantial tree trunk has almost broken into two pieces, showing the effect of strong winds and perhaps lightning. The curved country lane leads our eye back and forth across the scene until we notice another shepherd and sheep fleeing towards Roman buildings. Dughet spent most of his career in Rome and often visited the surrounding countryside to make sketches, which may have inspired the landscape we see here.
The canvas is extremely dirty and the varnish has yellowed, which makes dating this work and appreciating the artist's use of colour quite tricky. This painting most likely dates from around the 1660s, during Dughet's later career.
It remains uncertain whether Dughet or his brother-in-law Nicolas Poussin was responsible for introducing this kind of stormy landscape. The composition in Dughet's painting is very similar to Poussin's Storm (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen) painted in 1651. However, where Poussin emphasises the responses of the people, who cover their heads from falling debris and whose cattle-driven cart has come to a standstill, Dughet is more interested in showing the effect of the storm on the landscape: the unpredictable side of nature is conveyed by the broken tree stump right in front of us and the darkened, rain-filled clouds.
This painting was among the first works purchased by the National Gallery from the renowned collector John Julius Angerstein in 1824. The nineteenth-century critic John Ruskin, who did not like Dughet's paintings, was particularly critical of the tree on the right, calling it a 'violation of truth'. | Dughet's storm paintings were among his most admired works during his lifetime and in the eighteenth century. Two shepherds tending their flock struggle against the wind, their arms raised in alarm as they encourage their sheep to move down the path. The tree branches bend and twist against the force of the storm. In the centre, a substantial tree trunk has almost broken into two pieces, showing the effect of strong winds or perhaps lightning.
The curved country lane leads our eye back and forth across the scene until we notice another shepherd and sheep fleeing towards Roman buildings in the distance. Dughet spent most of his career in Rome and often made sketches of the surrounding countryside, which may have inspired the landscape we see here.
The canvas is extremely dirty and the varnish has yellowed, which makes dating this work and appreciating the artist's use of colour very difficult. | [
"baroque",
"academic"
] | [
"Baroque",
"Academic"
] | [
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0F9W-0001-0000-0000 | The tall chimneys of the house hidden among the trees seem the most stable things in van Ruisdael's picture, holding on to the steep hillside that slides down towards the river. The slender trunks of the birch trees on the right are twisted and crooked, and the leaves turning yellow are ready to fall and be swept away by the water.
The water pounds against the bridge's legs as it tumbles down between them. The people on the bridge pause -- one of them kneels, perhaps to pick something up, open to the elements, tiny and vulnerable. Another man trudges up the hillside path towards the house with his dog, little more than a speck of paint in the distance.
The rushing water turns an intense white where it foams over the stones and catches the sun. Van Ruisdael has painted the rocks in great detail: the tops of the closer ones in the water are razor sharp and craggy, becoming darker below, the edges more rounded where the water has worn them away. Further away beyond the bridge, the cliff face catches the sun, warming the lichen clinging to each block of stone. To the side of the cliff, he shows us the formation of the strata, layer on layer (incidentally giving the picture itself variation and interest).
Norwegian spruce trees reach up into dark, threatening clouds that gather overhead. The oak tree near them looks sturdy enough, hardly moving in the gathering storm, but a tiny oak sapling on the edge of the foam in the foreground is seemingly at the mercy of the torrent, part of its fragile trunk already broken and washed away.
From the late 1650s onwards, van Ruisdael painted many views that included waterfalls. For some time it was assumed that, since the Dutch landscape is almost uniformly flat, he must have visited a more mountainous country to give him such an abundant source for these pictures, although no record of such a journey has been found. But his friend Allart van Everdingen had been to Scandinavia in 1644 and returned with a number of drawings of the craggy mountains and waterfalls that became a source for van Ruisdael's more dramatic images.
The painting was once considered a pendant to a Waterfall by a Cottage in a Hilly Landscape: the two pictures had always been together, portrayed a similar subject and were the same size. But in the mid-twentieth century it was decided that the second picture was by Jacob Salomonsz. van Ruysdael, Jacob van Ruisdael's cousin who imitated his style. This was confirmed when narrow strips that had been added to the picture were removed and the signature not only proved false but resembled that with which Jacob Salomonsz. signed documents. | The tall chimneys of the house hidden among the trees seem the most stable things in van Ruisdael's picture, holding on to the steep hillside that slides down towards the river. The slender trunks of the birch trees on the right are twisted and crooked, and the leaves turning yellow are ready to fall and be swept away by the water. The water pounds against the bridge's legs as it tumbles down between them.
Van Ruisdael painted many views of waterfalls. For some time it was assumed that he must have visited a more mountainous country than Holland to give him such an abundant source for these pictures, although no record of such a journey has been found. But his friend Allart van Everdingen had been to Scandinavia and returned with drawings of the craggy mountains and waterfalls that became a source for van Ruisdael's dramatic images. | [
"baroque"
] | [
"Baroque"
] | [
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FN1-0001-0000-0000 | Formerly titled A Village Green in France, this is a view near Verberie, between Senlis and Compiègne, in the north-eastern department of Oise. We see a large flat field, in which cows are grazing, beneath a pale blue sky, which fills most of the picture. A row of trees with full foliage on the right of the picture casts dark shadows on the grass. A low hedge in the background divides the field from trees and houses in the distance.
Bonvin exhibited at the Salon from 1847, primarily painting still lifes (for example, Still Life with Book, Papers and Inkwell) and scenes of everyday life, but from 1869 he turned to landscape painting. This picture shows the influence of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, which Bonvin had studied at the Louvre. His work was particularly praised by the critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary, a champion of realism. Along with other artists, including Corot, Bonvin was commissioned by the artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps to paint pictures for his house at Fontainebleau. | Formerly titled A Village Green in France, this is a view near Verberie, between Senlis and Compiègne, in the north-eastern department of Oise. We see a large flat field, in which cows are grazing, beneath a pale blue sky, which fills most of the picture. A row of trees with full foliage on the right of the picture casts dark shadows on the grass. A low hedge in the background divides the field from trees and houses in the distance.
Bonvin exhibited at the Salon from 1847, primarily painting still lifes (for example, Still Life with Book, Papers and Inkwell, also in the National Gallery) and scenes of everyday life, but from 1869 he turned to landscape painting. This picture shows the influence of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, which Bonvin had studied at the Louvre. Along with other artists, including Corot, Bonvin was commissioned by the artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps to paint pictures for his house at Fontainebleau. | [
"realist"
] | [
"Realist"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FHX-0001-0000-0000 | Previously dismissed as a nineteenth-century forgery, this painting is now known to be a seventeenth-century copy of a panel by Pietro Perugino for the Benedictine Abbey of San Pietro in Perugia, Italy. It is one of two almost identical versions of a Baptism of Christ which were offered to the National Gallery in the nineteenth century as authentic Renaissance paintings. Both are copies of Perugino’s Baptism, from the predella of the high altar that was dedicated in the year 1500. We bought this panel, and the other was sold to the Royal Museums in Canterbury (now Canterbury City Council Museums). Both were subsequently thought to be forgeries, but in 1970 we took pigment samples from our painting and were surprised to discover that it contained no ‘modern’ pigments. In fact, when these samples were analysed again in 2009, it was established that the painting includes a rare pigment, lead-tin-antimony yellow, which has generally been found only in paintings made in Rome in the seventeenth century. Other pigments are also consistent with a seventeenth-century date, as is the warm pinkish ground.
In the mid-seventeenth century Perugino’s original painting was still at San Pietro in Perugia, where it would have been seen by Sassoferrato. Known primarily for his numerous images of the Virgin -- such as The Virgin in Prayer -- Sassoferrato was also a skilled copyist, following the common seventeenth-century practice of reproducing works by other masters (his Virgin and Child Embracing is a version of an etching by Guido Reni). Between 1630 and 1650 he produced several pictures for San Pietro -- some were original compositions but most were copies after Raphael, Perugino and others.
This painting shows several of Sassoferrato's stylistic idiosyncracies: the rounded faces and broad, flat leaves are quite unlike those in Perugino's original and more like those in Sassoferrato's Virgin and Child Embracing. He is also one of the few painters known to have used lead-tin-antimony yellow. | This scene shows Christ being baptised by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. The composition is directly based on a panel painted by Perugino for the Benedictine Abbey of San Pietro in Perugia, Italy. When the work was acquired by the National Gallery in the nineteenth century it was thought to be an authentic Renaissance painting, but was subsequently dismissed as a nineteenth-century forgery. Recent technical examination has shown that its pigments are typical of those used in the seventeenth century, including the rare lead-tin-antimony yellow.
In the mid-seventeenth century, Perugino’s original painting was still at San Pietro, where it would have been seen by Sassoferrato, who was working there between 1630 and 1650. Known primarily for his images of the Virgin Mary, Sassoferrato was also a skilled copyist. This painting demonstrates several of his stylistic idiosyncracies, and he is one of the few painters known to have used lead-tin-antimony yellow. | [
"high Renaissance",
"baroque",
"academic"
] | [
"High Renaissance",
"Baroque",
"Academic"
] | [
1,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
0FI1-0001-0000-0000 | The Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist stand with Christ in his red marble tomb supporting his lifeless body. He is partially covered by a burial shroud, but the spear wound on his side is visible. Streaks of blood on his chest have run down from the cuts on his forehead caused by the crown of thorns.
The Virgin's face is contorted with grief as she wipes her tears with her white veil. John places his hand to his breast, an agonised expression on his face. All three members of the Trinity are present: behind Christ is God the Father, also shown grieving, like a human parent; above him is the dove that represents the Holy Ghost. The divine figures occupy a heavenly realm; the yellow-gold sky seems to have dispelled the dense storm clouds, which have scattered to the edges of the scene.
The small figures in front of the tomb are probably the painting's patrons, their size emphasising both their own humanity and the divinity of the group they worship. Women kneel on one side and men on the other, their hands pressed together in prayer. They are being led by the figure at the centre dressed as a canon, who raises his right hand and looks up towards Christ, creating a connection between the patrons and the holy figures. The patrons cast shadows on the grass beneath them, a detail that Baldung Grien included to emphasise their physical presence in contrast to the heavenly vision they are witnessing.
The two coats of arms on either side of the picture identify the donors: the one to the left is probably that of the Bettschold family of Strasbourg, and the other may be that of the Rothschild family. The painting may have been made for St Pierre-le-Vieux in Strasbourg, where Baldung Grien was born and lived. His signature appears on the tomb, just above the women's heads, along with the date (1512), painted to look as though they are carved into the marble. | The Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist stand in Christ’s red marble tomb supporting his lifeless body. He is partially covered by a burial shroud, but the spear wound on his side is visible. The Virgin mourns her son, wiping her eyes with her veil. John the Evangelist places his hand to his breast, an agonised expression on his face. All three members of the Trinity are present: behind Christ is God the Father; above him is the dove that represents the Holy Ghost. In the background, dense grey storm clouds have parted to reveal a yellow-gold sky.
The small figures in front of the tomb are probably the painting's patrons. One figure raises his right hand and looks up towards Christ, creating a connection between the patrons and the holy figures. The two coats of arms on either side identify the donors: the one to the left is probably that of the Bettschold family of Strasbourg, while the other may belong to the Rothschild family. | [
"high Renaissance"
] | [
"High Renaissance"
] | [
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
1,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
] | {
"id": "CC0",
"labels": "CC0",
"labels_text": "CC0",
"long_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"short_text": "CC BY 4.0",
"style": "CC0",
"terms_of_use": "https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/terms-of-use"
} |
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
National Gallery Artwork Style Classification
This dataset is one of a collection of datasets, derived from the National Gallery Elasticsearch endpoint (https://data.ng.ac.uk/es/public/_search). Each row comprises the long- and short-text descriptions, found on the Gallery's website (e.g. Sunflowers - Vincent van Gogh). From this textual-description alone, the model must predict the one or more style classifications, designated by art historical experts at the National Gallery.
The output from the Elasticsearch endpoint is first flattened and unwanted keys discarded using Proteus. Rows with null or empty short- or long-texts are removed. A style label must have a minimum frequency of 5 occurences across the collection to be kept. After filtering out low-frequency labels, rows with a null or empty style field are removed from the dataset.
The following labels are included for classification:
| Style | Frequency | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baroque | 900 | Impressionist | 125 | Stuart | 19 |
| High Renaissance | 623 | Barbizon | 76 | Pointillist | 12 |
| Early Renaissance | 534 | Georgian | 75 | International Gothic | 10 |
| Gothic | 336 | Romantic | 75 | Symbolist | 10 |
| Neoclassical | 240 | Post-Impressionist | 35 | Nabi | 9 |
| Academic | 215 | Caravaggist | 33 | Regency | 8 |
| Rococo | 162 | Mannerist | 27 | Modernist | 6 |
| Realist | 134 | Victorian | 26 |
Label Mapping
The following code can be used to convert predictions back into text labels:
import numpy as np
ordered_label_text = np.array([
'Academic', 'Barbizon', 'Baroque', 'Caravaggist', 'Early Renaissance', 'Georgian', 'Gothic', 'High Renaissance',
'Impressionist', 'International Gothic', 'Mannerist', 'Modernist', 'Nabi', 'Neoclassical', 'Pointillist',
'Post-Impressionist', 'Realist', 'Regency', 'Rococo', 'Romantic', 'Stuart', 'Symbolist', 'Victorian'
])
# Single example
label = np.array([0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0])
ordered_text_labels[label == 1]
# Apply to dataframe column
df["predictions"].apply(lambda pred: ordered_label_text[pred == 1])
Limitations and Biases
Reflecting the collecting priorities of the National Gallery itself, this dataset exclusively represents European art, specifically that of Western Europe. The collection spans from the 13th to the early 20th century, therefore excluding many entire movements in more recent art-history (e.g. dadaism, surrealism) and those before approximately 1200 (e.g. Early Christian, Pre-Romanesque). Furthermore, the works in the collection are predominantly by well-established artists in the Western art historical canon.
The distribution of labels is also heavily imbalanced: 14 labels only appear once across the collection (Wan-Li, Medieval, Cubist, Fauve, Pre-Raphaelite, Expressionist, Plantagenet, Viennese Secessionist, Die Brücke, Surrealist, Ottoman, Edwardian, Classical, Aesthetic Movement); and a further 4 are also excluded due to low frequency (Renaissance, Antique, Nazarene, Tudor). As these labels were assigned over an extended period and among many individuals, different degrees of granularity were adopted, creating groups of labels that form hierarchies of generality (e.g. Renaissance ⊇ {High Renaissance, Early Renaissance}). A future version of this dataset will try to make use of these hierarchies.
Users should be aware that this dataset encodes particular art-historical perspectives that:
- Reflect Western/European art historical frameworks
- May perpetuate canonical hierarchies in art history
- Represent institutional collecting practices of a single organisation
License & Copyright Statement
To encourage the use and reuse of the National Gallery's collection data, they are released under the following dedications and licences:
Structured data (as opposed to narrative texts) are released under a Creative Commons Zero dedication (CC0):
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/.
Descriptions, notes and all other narrative text content are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY):
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 licence (CC BY-NC-ND):
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
- Downloads last month
- 7