wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This view has been identified as the coast at Palavas-les-Flots, a fishing village located to the south of Montpellier on a thin strip of land separated from the mainland by two lakes. We are looking south-west towards the Montagne de Sète (Mont Saint-Clair) in the right distance.

The picture is similar to seascapes that Gustave Courbet painted there during his several visits to Montpellier in the 1850s. In particular, there are resemblances to his small painting The Seaside at Palavas (Musée Fabre, Montpellier). Painted in 1854, that work was commissioned by Alfred Bruyas during Courbet’s first visit. It shows Courbet, or perhaps Bruyas, standing on a deserted beach greeting the sea and may have been inspired in part by Caspar David Friedrich's Monk by the Sea (Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin).

However, this slightly larger painting is not accepted as a work by Courbet despite the signature G. Courbet in the lower right corner. The composition, particularly the sky, is blander than his other seascapes and the smooth application of the thinned paint is unlike his more textured use of oil paint.

Style: Barbizon
The Queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon appears in Jewish, Christian, Islamic and other religious and national narratives. Solomon, King of Israel, was known for his great wisdom. The Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem from South Arabia to test Solomon's wisdom for herself (1 Kings 10: 1--13). She was accompanied by a great retinue bearing spices, gold and precious stones.

She kneels in reverence before King Solomon who is seated on his throne beneath a red and gold canopy. Two ladies hold the Queen's cloak while others present golden jars and bowls of spices brought as gifts from the east. The movement of the figures in the painting is from right to left rather than the more common left to right. The scene is also lit from the right, which is again unusual. This suggests that the painting was made to be displayed in a place where the actual light came from this direction.

The paint has become translucent over time. The figures were painted on top of the architecture and so now the lines of the steps and paving show through them. Because of this, it is difficult to make out what is happening in some parts of the picture, particularly the Queen's retinue.

The painting's long narrow shape means it was probably made to decorate a piece of furniture. It may have been one of a series of paintings for an organ case. In Venice during the sixteenth century organ case paintings were often of this shape and size and usually depicted subjects from the Old Testament. The Queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon was frequently paired with the Adoration of the Kings or Esther before Ahasuerus and was a popular choice for bedroom furniture.

Sustris probably painted this picture in Venice although it is difficult to date his works with certainty. The architecture is of a classical design seen in the work of Baldassare Peruzzi and his pupil Sebastiano Serlio. Sustris may have already studied Peruzzi's work in Rome before he came to Venice. The veined marble column shafts and several of the architectural elements in Sustris's picture are also included in Titian's very much larger painting, The Presentation of the Virgin (Accademia, Venice). Sustris was Titian's pupil and may have painted the landscape in Titian's picture.

Style: High Renaissance
The story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife is recounted in the book of Genesis (39:7-20). Joseph had been enslaved and purchased by Potiphar, the captain of the Pharaoh’s guard, who appointed him as steward to his household. Potiphar’s wife took a fancy to Joseph (who, we are told, was well-built and handsome) and attempted to seduce him on several occasions. One day, when they were alone, she commanded him to come to bed with her. At this moment painted by Orazio Gentileschi, Joseph escapes her advances but leaves his sumptuous yellow cloak in her hands as she leans, half-naked across an elaborate bed. Joseph’s cloak was later used as evidence in her false accusation of sexual assault, revenge for his rejection of her, and he was flung into prison.

The Florentine painter Orazio Gentileschi spent the last thirteen years of his life in London as court painter to King Charles I. Though usually assumed to have been commissioned by the king, it is nonetheless thought that this painting was probably painted for Queen Henrietta Maria, to hang in the Queen’s House at Greenwich. The building accounts for Greenwich for the year 1633-4 include a record for varnishing and gilding four frames for paintings identified as the present painting, Gentileschi’s Finding of Moses (National Gallery), Artemisia Gentileschi’s lost Tarquin and Lucretia and a painting of the Muses. The painting may have hung in the Queen’s antechamber at Greenwich until the Commonwealth sale. After the Restoration in 1660 it was claimed by Henrietta Maria, together with the Finding of Moses, and take by her to Colombes, France.

The scene is dominated by the weighty red curtain with gold fringed edges, its stiffness and folds painted with great virtuosity to form a theatrical backdrop that frames Potiphar’s wife’s exquisitely porcelain profile. There is an oppressive abundance of heavy, rich fabrics that might muffle the sounds of a would-be seduction. The bed’s magnificent golden camel foot alludes to animal instinct, while the rumpled linen sheets and cascading hair of Potiphar’s wife suggest a struggle. Joseph himself is dressed in contemporary style; his attire recalls other Florentine narrative paintings of this moment. Gentileschi had already been in England for some years, but he clearly remained attuned to the painterly trends in Florence, his hometown. The care taken to render textiles, hangings and clothing with such virtuosity is particularly appropriate for a story focused on the evidence of a cloak.

Text adapted from the Royal Collection website

Style: Baroque
These three panels celebrate Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead. The first shows the moment at which his tomb was found empty, the second his appearance to Mary Magdalene -- both events that are recorded in the Gospels. The  third shows him triumphant over death, standing upon his tomb, holding the red and white flag of the Resurrection.

The pictures reflect aspects of Mantegna's style, particularly engravings made at the end of the 1450s and beginning of the 1460s, and so have been thought to be painted in imitation of his works. The jagged rock formations, the angular folds of the draperies and the slim, elongated limbs of the figures are all characteristic of Mantegna's paintings. Similarly, certain motifs, such as the soldiers asleep by Christ's tomb in The Resurrection and the tree encircled by the vine in Noli me Tangere, appear in works by Mantegna himself.

All three came from the same series and were painted by the same artist. There have been various ideas about who the artist might have been -- it has been suggested, for example, that it may have been Mantegna's son, Francesco -- but so far they remain unidentified. Technical analysis of the pigments shows that they are unlikely to have been painted more than about 50 years after Mantegna's death.

Analysis of the underdrawing shows that the painter did not make any alterations to the overall design or any of the details, which suggests that they were tracing directly from a pre-existing image rather than inventing an original composition. They might be copies of images painted by Mantegna for his patrons at the Gonzaga court in Mantua, perhaps for the private chapel there.

Two of the panels came from the Palazzo Capponi in Florence before they were purchased by English collector John Sanford of Corsham Court, Wiltshire. Sanford, who lived in Florence from 1832 to 1837, was one of the most active collectors of Italian painting in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Style: Early Renaissance
This large altarpiece is extraordinary in many ways. Sawn into fragments in the eighteenth century, it was reassembled in the early twentieth, and is one of the few in our collection that is virtually complete. It's our earliest example of a particular type of altarpiece, a pala.

Commissioned in 1455 by a confraternity of priests, it is Pesellino's only surviving documented work. He died in 1457 before he could finish it, so it was completed by Fra Filippo Lippi and his workshop. Made for the high altar of the church of the Holy Trinity in Pistoia, it was taken apart after 1783 when the confraternity was suppressed. The main panel was cut up into five or six pieces and dispersed. Most were gradually acquired by the National Gallery, although one panel is owned by the Royal Collection and one fragment is lost.

Today we see The Trinity in the centre, with angels to the right and left. Saints Zeno and Jerome appear on the right, with Saints Mamas and James on the left. Only the lower right-hand side of the main panel is a modern reconstruction, as is the frame. In the predella we see an imprisoned Saint Mamas thrown to the lions, Saint James the Great being beheaded, Saint Zeno exorcising the daughter of the Emperor Gallienus and Saint Jerome with his lion.

Because of this altarpiece we have a fascinating insight into how medieval art was made and valued. From the surviving minutes of the confraternity's meetings we know when and why a new altarpiece was commissioned, what it was to show and that it was to cost between 150 and 200 florins -- a huge sum, perhaps partly due to the expense of using fashionable Florentine artists rather than local ones. We even know that Mamas was included because he was the favourite saint of Pero ser Landi, the confraternity's treasurer. The confraternity was careful to see plans for each aspect of the work, and commissioned preparatory drawings -- some of which survive --  from Pesellino and from a maestro Lorenzo, who perhaps designed the woodwork. Landi made repeated trips to Florence to sign the contract and oversee progress.

By July 1457 Pesellino was too ill to continue; by the end of the month he was dead. There was then a battle between Pesellino's widow and his business partner over the money paid and still owing on the partly painted panel. This was resolved by September 1458 when the panel was brought to Pistoia and the commission for finishing it given to Filippo Lippi. The whole ensemble was finally hoisted into place in June 1465, nearly ten years after it had been commissioned.

It must have looked radically new to the priests seated in the choir stalls: traditionally altarpieces were polyptychs but during the fifteenth century they changed to this new form, like the slightly later  Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. The whole idea of showing solid, weighty figures in a panoramic landscape was new and was to have a great influence on later painters, such as Piero and Antonio del Pollaiuolo.

Style: Early Renaissance, Gothic
Huge clouds float across a wide sky, seeming to dwarf everything below -- even the two frigates heading way out to sea, sails raised, tall and majestic. From the gunports of one, a cannon blazes in salute to signal their departure. The puffs of smoke are painted with light, airy swirls of white, making miniature versions of the clouds overhead; there's even a tiny, but brilliant, flash of gold and orange from the unseen cannon's mouth.

Although these two stately ships are in the distance, they are the focus of the picture. Van Goyen placed the closer figures in their fishing boats in deep shadow, almost in silhouette, making them seem incidental. Frigates were light warships that protected the giant merchant vessels that were the lifeblood of the new Dutch Republic, reaching out across the world and bringing wealth to the small but powerful nation. And van Goyen has positioned them almost centrally, with a clear sweep of water between them and us – it's as if everything has moved aside to allow them freedom of the waterways.

The sea is calm, the reflections on its surface clear and barely rippled -- even the gun smoke is mirrored as if there’s another cannon firing under the water. The men in the small boats go about their tasks or sit, simply taking in the view. But they don't look at the departing frigates: to them, the ships have become a part of everyday life. Beyond the slackened, tawny brown sail of the fishing boat, the sails of a windmill stretch up to catch a sudden glimpse of the sun -- two kinds of sail that appear like a repeating rhythm through Dutch land and seascapes of the time.

Van Goyen has given us a panoramic view, but also many minute details. Two fishing nets stand up like transparent flags in the larger boat out by the little island. Big round baskets await a catch in the rowing boat close to us. Beside it, a bare branch seems to curve round to point the way for the two frigates.

We don’t know if the painting represents a specific place. It’s probably an amalgamation of small scenes from van Goyen’s many drawings. These were made on the spot and out of doors, but the final painting was worked up in the studio (standard practice at the time). He worked extremely fast, sometimes painting a picture in a day, but this speed didn’t stop him from portraying poetic visions of the Dutch landscape that hold the gaze and appeal to the imagination. This picture is quiet and serene and, with the towering sails on the departing ships, the tiny Dutch flag fluttering from the fishing boat and the upward sweep of the sunlit clouds, somehow buoyant and full of hope.

Style: Baroque
A barefoot and bearded saint sits in a rocky landscape, prayer beads in hand. Discarded behind him is a red cardinal's hat and he wears a cardinal's ermine cape over his rough wool habit. This is Saint Jerome, monk, hermit and translator of the Bible.

One of the so-called Doctors of the Church, Jerome was a popular saint in the Middle Ages, especially with religious orders. He was seen as a role model for living an ascetic life -- he renounced worldly riches and pleasure -- and for the scholarly study of the Bible. Widely travelled and well educated, Jerome was deeply affected by a dream in which God accused him of loving classical literature more than scripture. He went to live in the desert of Chalcis in Syria, gave up the classics he knew and loved, and learnt Hebrew to study the Bible in its original language. He later went to Rome and became secretary to the Pope -- that's why he's often shown with the red robes and hat of a cardinal, as in Crivelli's Saint Jerome, even though the office did not exist in his lifetime -- and started work on what was to become the standard Latin text of the Bible.

Here he seems to have been up all night working: books, scrolls and ink pots are piled on a ledge and on the floor behind him, and the hills in the distance are flooded with the golden light of dawn. This light is perhaps also a metaphor. It glints on the spire and pinnacles of a small church nestled in the valley, and Jerome was said to have illuminated the Church with his teachings. The wooded and rocky landscape is presumably the wilderness in which he spent some years and where, according to legend, he pulled a thorn out of a lion's paw. The lion remained his faithful companion till his death; here it curls at his feet like a dog, an endearing smile on its face.

We don't know who this painting was for, though it is among the earliest of a type of image which subsequently became very popular, especially in north-east Italy. The painting was in Ferrara in the 1830s, and the cult of Saint Jerome was encouraged by the humanists at the court of Ferrara in the fifteenth century. Perhaps it was made for a Ferrarese aristocrat or churchman and remained there ever since it was made.

Bono da Ferrara was a pupil of Pisanello, as stated on the scroll in the bottom right corner. It was from Pisanello that he got his interest in animals -- compare the grazing doe on the rocky height with the does and stags in The Vision of Saint Eustace -- and the trees and rocky ground are reminiscent of The Virgin and Child with Saints Anthony Abbot and George. It's possible that this painting is a version of a lost Pisanello, but Bono applied his paint in a less refined way than his master, and his interest in foreshortening -- seen especially in the plate-like halo -- recalls that of his contemporary Carlo Crivelli.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Three partially draped nudes, the Three Graces of Antiquity  -- Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia -- seem to be floating on clouds. They were daughters of Zeus and the Three Graces were often associated with pleasure, chastity and beauty.

The composition repeats in reverse a 1638 painting of the same subject by the Italian Baroque artist Franceso Furini, which is now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg. A member of Furini's studio may have re-used his cartoon, or large-scale preparatory drawing, to create this work.

Furini was one of the leading Florentine painters of the first half of the seventeenth century, known for his sensual female nudes and sfumato effects. His interest in  classical sculpture is evident in his many mythological and allegorical paintings of the 1620s and 1630s. Although he took his subjects from Antiquity, he reinterpreted them through an intense study of nature and made many life studies, particularly of female nudes. A preparatory drawing by Furini for the seated Grace survives in the Louvre, Paris.

Style: Baroque, Academic
According to the Old Testament Book of Exodus, Pharaoh ordered all Israelite baby boys to be cast into the river, but Moses's mother hid him in a basket among the bulrushes. He was discovered there by Pharaoh's daughter, Thermutis, who is shown here dressed in a yellow robe and surrounded by her maidens. Moses is cradled by his sister, Miriam, dressed in white.

Thermutis decides to spare Moses from death and eventually adopts him. The joy of this event is reflected in Thermutis's welcoming smile and the excited gestures of her companions, whose fluttering clothing shows their hurried movement towards the infant. To the right, a woman catches our eye as she steps out of the water. The palm trees and statue of a sphinx, a mythical creature with a human head and lion's body, tell us the scene is taking place in Egypt. Colourful clothing shimmers in the sunlight, conveying the warmth of the Egyptian climate.

Poussin takes inspiration from ancient Roman architecture and from recently discovered mosaics in Rome. The unusual-looking building in the centre with a large vase on the roof to collect water is based on a mosaic discovered in around 1600 in the Temple of Fortuna at Praeneste. Poussin was familiar with this building through watercolour studies of it owned by his patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo. The figures, with their idealised bodies and extravagant drapery, are also based on sculptures from classical antiquity.

Poussin painted three, or possibly four, versions of this subject. Two of these paintings were in the collection of Louis XIV and are now in the Louvre, Paris. Painted in 1651 for Benardin Reynon (1613--1686), a Lyon silk merchant, this is the last and most accomplished version. It had many prestigious owners: the Duc de Richelieu (1629--1715), the great-nephew of Cardinal Richelieu, and later in the seventeenth century, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay (1651--1690), whose widow is portrayed in Mignard's The Marquise de Seignelay and Two of her Sons, also owned by the National Gallery.

This subject was often painted during the Renaissance and seventeenth century. Painters commonly made connections between images of the infant Moses and the young Jesus Christ escaping the Massacre of the Innocents. The four maidens on the left of this painting recall the shepherds in scenes of the Adoration and Thermutis's pose derives from images of the Virgin. Poussin clearly revelled in painting this engaging work: the women are carefully arranged within an ordered composition, and he uses a variety of poses and expressions and vibrant colouring. An expensive ultramarine blue pigment is used for the green and blue robes as well as areas in shadow and the grey buildings.

We own other paintings on the theme: Bartholomeus Breenbergh's  The Finding of the Infant Moses by Pharaoh's Daughter, and Antonio De Bellis's  The Finding of Moses, and on loan to our collection is Orazio Gentileschi's The Finding of Moses.

Style: Baroque, Academic
Various foods and containers compete for space on a bare wooden shelf or table. A plate is piled high with walnuts, with chestnuts and oranges scattered alongside and a colossal melon behind. There are earthenware jugs, probably containing oil or wine, and a small barrel, possibly filled with olives. The round boxes were normally used for storing cheese, the rectangular ones for sweets such as dulce de membrillo, a thick quince jelly eaten in slices. Someone may have started to prepare the food: some of the walnuts have been opened, though they remain uneaten, and one jug has lost the twine that secures its paper cover.

Meléndez's close-up view makes these ordinary objects appear monumental. Their placement might seem arbitrary but the artist has arranged his composition carefully: our eye moves along the boxes' diagonals from the smaller items in the foreground to the larger ones at the back. The unevenly stacked boxes are sharply foreshortened, helping to create a sense of depth. Though the colour range is limited, the intense light emphasises the range of textures on display, from the dimpled peel of the oranges to the delicate woodgrain of the barrel and boxes. A similar selection of objects, though differently arranged, appears in Still Life with Lemons and Oranges, suggesting that Meléndez may have owned them or kept them as stock in his studio.

Meléndez placed his signature prominently, with a date of 1772, on the end of one of the boxes closest to us. He painted it at a time when he was hopeful of becoming court painter, having recently worked on a large series of still-life paintings for the Prince of Asturias, the son of Charles III, King of Spain. He was, however, unsuccessful.

This composition has been painted over another work: an X-ray image shows a bust-length portrait of Charles III underneath, which might also have been painted by Meléndez. Its composition is based on a portrait that Anton Raphael Mengs made for the King in around 1761 (Museo del Prado, Madrid). As the monarch’s official image, various copies of Mengs's painting were made and distributed across the vast Spanish empire during the 1760s and 1770s. Meléndez's decision to paint over the portrait may reflect his bitter disappointment at being rejected for the royal post of court painter. Or perhaps he was unable to present it to the King or to a member of his court, and subsequently cut the canvas down and reused it, creating a still-life painting instead -- the genre for which he is best known today.

Style: Neoclassical
This painting shows Rinaldo, a Christian knight who has been enchanted by the Saracen sorceress Armida, turning away from  his own reflection in a magic shield. With the spell broken, Rinaldo gives up his love for Armida and escapes with his companions, Carlo and Ubaldo, who stand nearby wearing elaborate helmets.

This scene is taken from an episode in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, a sixteenth-century epic poem about the First Crusade, a Christian military campaign to recapture Jerusalem from Islamic rule. Rinaldo's clothing and armour is inspired by the Classical world: the scallop shell at his waist was in Antiquity the attribute of Venus, the goddess of love.

Painted during the 1740s, at the height of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's career, this is one of four pictures in a series that once decorated a room in the Palazzo Cornaro on the Campo San Polo, Venice. The other paintings -- Seated Man, Woman with Jar, and Boy, Two Standing Figures and Two Men seated under a Tree -- also depict figures inspired by Tasso’s poem.

Style: Baroque, Rococo