wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
The cold is almost tangible in Jan van Goyen’s evocation of life on the ice in a seventeenth-century Dutch winter. The horizon is low and the sky vast, so we are on a level with the people portrayed. A bank of grey cloud hovers overhead, just moving enough to let in the pale sun and allow a glimmer of reflection on the frozen waterway.

A group of figures is crowded into a wooden sledge -- three men and one woman, whose skirt balloons out over the side. The horse is already headed towards the ice to haul the sledge across the river. A man in an old coat trudges along beside them while his skinny little dog lifts a foot awkwardly, as if unwilling to try the temperature of the ice in front of it. Another man tramps towards us holding a boat hook, still wearing his skates. Behind him, his companion clutches his clothes around him, gripped with cold and seemingly unable to move.

But some make a living from the weather. A man in a sledge stops to buy a drink from the owner of the makeshift tent. Under a darkening sky, the Dutch flag on top lifts a little in the wind. It’s too cold to snow. The man’s horse stands patiently, its mane hanging lank, an old, threadbare blanket flung over its back. It turns its head to us and with a tiny dot of paint, van Goyen has given it a feisty look in its eye.

Out on the ice, people go about their business. Two or three men play kolf, the forerunner of golf, but the rest seem to have little time to play or to enjoy the chance to skate for fun. The freezing air seems to have taken hold of them and they just keep moving, doing what needs to be done, or huddle into their garments.

The setting is an imaginary place, perhaps built up from the drawings van Goyen made in his many sketchbooks. The distant church spire and the windmill are unidentified -- typical Dutch buildings that could be seen anywhere. Unlike Hendrik Avercamp’s two paintings in the National Gallery's collection, A Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle and A Scene on the Ice near a Town, this one evokes an atmosphere rather than showing colourful incidents to entertain the viewer. The tiny image is an elegy to winter. The colours are muted and swiftly painted, making the distant figures little more than grey outlines, almost like ghosts passing in the mist.

Style: Baroque
The fourth-century saint Margaret was said to come from the city of Antioch. Her father, a pagan priest, cast her out when she converted to Christianity and she was left to fend for herself tending sheep. Zurbarán shows her holding a crook, with a brightly coloured saddlebag ('alforjas') slung over her arm. She marks a page of her prayer book with one finger, suggesting she was in prayer.

She is dressed as a wealthy shepherdess. Her white cotton shirt with curled collar and cuffs peeks through the sleeves of her blue woollen jacket (known as a 'sayuelo'). She wears a lambskin jacket ('pellica') over her picturesque costume, and a wide-brimmed straw hat is fashionably cocked on her head. Her simple sandals are made of leather -- you can see the stitching on them really clearly.

Margaret seems oblivious to the snarling dragon crouched at her feet; she gazes directly towards us with a sober, determined expression. The creature is condemned to darkness behind the glowing saint. According to the Golden Legend, a medieval compilation of saints' biographies, the dragon -- Satan in disguise -- devoured her. She burst from its belly unharmed and later assumed the role of patron saint of childbirth, the dragon becoming her symbol.

The strong lighting emphasises the saint's flawless skin and the vibrant colours and rich textures of her clothing, but also the scales on the dragon's curled tail, its piercing eyes and pointed fangs. Her head and dress show the artist's careful and smooth painting technique: the brushstrokes are particularly difficult to see in her skin tones. His attention to detail is obvious in the pattern and texture of her woven saddlebag, which is decorated with colourful stripes and geometric patterns.

Unlike most of Zurbarán's paintings of female saints, which were commissioned as series and largely painted by assistants, this one is entirely by the artist himself and does not appear to be part of a series. Zurbarán worked for churches and monasteries in and around Seville, where he lived from 1629, and in Extremadura. Many of his works were exported to South America: in 1647 he received an order for 24 paintings of virgin saints for Lima, Peru, and two years later he sent 15 paintings of the same subject to Buenos Aires, Argentina. During the 1640s he produced several series of virgin saints, but this one probably dates from the previous decade.

Zurbarán's intensely spiritual paintings perfectly express the ideas of the Counter-Reformation -- compare this work with his other saints in our collection: Saint Francis in Mediation and Saint Francis in Meditation.

Style: Baroque
This triptych was most likely made for private contemplation and worship. Its small scale -- the figures are painted in miniature -- and soft violet, lavender, peach and pink colours, and the intricate detail and decorative effects -- like the Virgin's robes, which are patterned with golden suns and moons -- give the painting the air of a luxury object.

The central image shows Christ crowning the Virgin Mary after her ascension to heaven. The setting has the appearance of a palatial throne room; the coloured marble floor tiles diminish in size as they reach the throne to give the impression of a large space. The throne itself is magnificent in both its size and its elaborate carved decorative details. Orderly tiers of cherubim and seraphim, angels and saints are arranged around the throne.

Below, two groups of saints look up in devotion towards the Virgin and Christ. On the left is Saint Margaret with the dragon from whose belly she escaped death, while Saint Catherine of Alexandria is identifiable by the wheel at her side -- the instrument of her torture. The saint with the crown between them may be the empress Helen. Opposite them, Saint Paul holds the sword with which he was beheaded and Saint John the Baptist appears in the camel-skin tunic he wore in the wilderness. Saint Peter has the keys to the kingdom of heaven offered to him by Christ (Matthew: 16--19) -- he appears to hold one out to Catherine, who raises her hand to her breast in acceptance.

The panels on either side of this scene show the Nativity of Christ on the left and the Crucifixion on the right. The upper parts of the wings together show the Annunciation. On the left the angel Gabriel, holding a lily, kneels to announce to Mary that she will conceive the son of God. On the right Mary appears startled by the sight of the Holy Ghost, a tiny dove emanating golden rays, who will impregnate her.

The reverses of the two outer wings are painted with scenes from the life of the Virgin, from the story of her conception to her marriage to Joseph. These would have been visible when the triptych was closed. These seem to be based upon Giotto's highly influential scenes of the life of the Virgin made for the Arena chapel in Padua.

The importance of Saint Catherine, who receives the key from Peter, and the unusual prominence of female saints suggests the triptych might have been made for a female patron. She may have been a Dominican nun at Santa Maria della Vettabbia in Milan called Isotta de Terzago. Isotta commissioned a polyptych from Giusto four years before he made this picture; it also featured the six saints given prominence here.

Another theory is that the patrons were Ambrogio and Caterina Birago, whose name saints Ambrose and Catherine both feature here. They came from the same town as Isotta de Terzago and had commissioned a series of frescoes showing scenes of the Virgin's conception and birth, a rare choice of imagery in Italian art. It is possible that the story had meaning for their marriage -- perhaps they were hoping to have a child themselves.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
These four small pictures were probably painted for 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. They illustrate the key episodes of the Second Eclogue by Antonio Tebaldeo (1456--1538), a poet from Ferrara.

The four scenes are painted on two wooden panels. Episodes one (Damon Broods on his Unrequited Love for Amaryllis) and three (Damon takes his Life) are painted on one panel and episodes two (Thyrsis asks Damon the Cause of his Sorrow) and four (Thyrsis finds the Body of Damon) are on the other.

In the first scene the shepherd  Damon broods over his unrequited love for Amaryllis. He neglects his sheep, stops playing his lyre and rests his head in his hand. In the next scene his friend Thyrsis urges him to stop being so melancholy. In the third scene, having broken his instrument and abandoned it on the ground, Damon plunges a dagger into his chest. In the final scene, Thyrsis discovers Damon’s dead body.

When the paintings were acquired by the National Gallery in 1937 the director, Kenneth Clark, believed them to be by the Venetian painter Giorgione. It was later suggested that they were the work of Previtali although no other known paintings by him depict subjects from humanist texts, or approach the style of Giorgione so closely. However, the scenes resemble other signed works by Previtali and it is now accepted that the paintings are by him. The way the foliage fringes the sky is characteristic of Previtali, as are the 'half-star' yellow highlights used to render sunlight on the leaves. The almost vertical hills, used like wings on a stage, are also typical of him. In the background of Previtali’s early signed Virgin and Child (Detroit Institute of Art, Chicago) the shepherd is posed rather like Damon and black sheep appear in the flock as they do here in the third scene.

The comparison with the Detroit painting suggests that our panels were painted early in the first decade of the sixteenth century, in which case they might have been a response to the recent publication of Tebaldeo’s poems. First published in Modena in 1498, the poems were very popular and were reprinted in 1499, in Venice in 1500 and then a further ten times in Venice and four times in Milan between then and 1520. The paintings were probably made some time around 1510.

Style: High Renaissance
Portrait of a Woman aged about 45 and Portrait of a Man aged about 45, both painted in oil on board, were designed to hang together as portraits of a husband and wife. They were said to have been given by the painter Sir William Boxall RA, director of the National Gallery from 1865 to 1874, to his friend, the architect James Wyatt RA (1746--1813).  Wyatt’s great-grandson, H.W. Standen, presented them to the National Gallery in 1964 as a 'Self-Portrait of William Boxall and a companion portrait of his wife'. However, the features in the male portrait are unlike those in Boxall's Self Portrait at the Age of Nineteen, and he never married. It is now thought more likely that these are early portraits by Boxall of his parents.

Although he initially hoped to make his name in the prestigious genre of history painting, Boxall turned to the more lucrative genre of portraiture, and became known for his gloomy portraits of clergymen and dignitaries. However, the fact that these two portraits are painted on board suggests that this was not a prestigious commission for which a canvas support would have been used. The portraits probably date from around the same time that Boxall painted his own Self Portrait at the Age of Nineteen, or perhaps shortly afterwards.

After his appointment as Director of the National Gallery in 1865, Boxall practically gave up painting and dedicated himself to the task of running the Gallery and securing important new acquisitions for the national collection, including The Entombment and The Manchester Madonna by Michelangelo.

Style: Neoclassical, Georgian
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was one of the most successful and influential creative figures of seventeenth-century Rome. He was multi talented -- a brilliant sculptor and also responsible for town-planning schemes, the design of the fountain in the middle of Piazza Navona and the construction and remodelling of several of the city’s churches, including the great colonnade in front of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. He made few paintings, however; this image of Saints Andrew and Thomas is a rarity and also his earliest documented picture.

He has created an intensely atmospheric scene. It owes much to the dramatic lighting and close-cropped framing that had been pioneered in Rome by Caravaggio a couple of decades earlier, which was still highly fashionable in the 1620s. It is a technique which makes the figures seem more immediate and closer to the viewer. Bernini enhances the effect here with the highlights on the pointing finger, which make it seem to protrude forward out of the picture space, and also the dead fish which lies on a ledge in the foreground of the painting.

The fish might seem a strange addition to the scene, but it is a conventional way of identifying Saint Andrew, who was a fisherman. The book he is reading is also a traditional attribute, probably a reference to the Acts of Andrew, an apocryphal text written about him. The other saint is Thomas, identifiable by the set square clasped in his right hand. This alludes to his profession as a carpenter and to an episode in the Acts of Thomas, also apocryphal, in which he is described as being summoned to build a palace for a king in India.

The two saints were both apostles, two of the twelve disciples who were the earliest followers of Christ. Andrew and Thomas were contemporaries and friends, but Bernini was not trying to depict a particular event or discussion that they were known to have had. Instead he has created a contrast between age and youth, teacher and student. Andrew, balding and grey-haired, points to a passage in his book and turns to explain it to the youthful, animated Thomas, who looks on intensely as understanding begins to dawn on his face.

This painting is listed in an inventory of the Barberini collection in Rome, dated 1 June 1627 (though probably drawn up a few years earlier). Bernini’s most important patron was Maffeo Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII in 1623. Indeed, Bernini himself oversaw the building of the Palazzo Barberini from 1629 until its completion in 1633. However, it's not clear if this painting was a commissioned work or if it was simply acquired by or presented to the Barberini family by the artist.

An argument has been made that the painting may be a companion to another picture of two saints by Andrea Sacchi, also in the National Gallery collection. However, the precise relationship between the two is uncertain.

Style: Baroque, Academic
Born and raised in Geneva before moving to Paris, Jean-Etienne Liotard had an international career that took him around Europe. While in Rome, he was invited by William Ponsonby, the 2nd Earl of Beesborough, to join him on a visit to Constantinople (now part of Istanbul). Liotard remained in Constantinople from the spring of 1738 to the autumn of 1742, and these four years were a defining period for his work. While living there, Liotard grew his distinctive long beard, adopted Turkish clothing and called himself ‘the Turkish painter’. He travelled widely across Europe producing pastels and highly finished red and black chalk drawings of European nobles and diplomats, often in Eastern costume.

The bearded man in this pastel on vellum or parchment (specially prepared animal skin) may be one of these sitters wearing Turkish clothes. He was once thought to be Edward Wortley Montagu, either the father (1678--1761) or the son (1713--1776). However, although Montagu senior was the British ambassador in Constantinople from 1717 to 1718, he was there 20 years before Liotard arrived. Liotard could have painted him during his first visit to London in 1753, but the former ambassador would have then been 75 and too old for the man we see here.  Nor does the portrait look like confirmed portraits of his son, so he too is no longer believed to be the sitter. The claim that this is a self portrait of Liotard himself has also been rejected.

Although the possibility of a European sitter cannot be completely ruled out, it is far more likely that this man is an as yet unidentified Turkish Grand Vizier (the Prime Minister answerable only to the Sultan himself), as both the white gold-striped conical turban and the ermine-trimmed coat were worn by Grand Viziers of the Ottoman Empire. There were four Grand Viziers whom Liotard might have portrayed during the four years he was in Constantinople, but identifying the one we may be looking at here is not  straightforward. The most likely candidate -- on the basis of age at least -- is Nişanci (Chancellor) ‘Kőr’ Ahmed Pasha, who died in 1753 (the date of his birth is unknown). Before his dismissal in April 1742 and exile to Rhodes, Ahmed Pasha also served the longest of the four Grand Viziers in office during Liotard’s time in Constantinople. If this portrait is of Ahmed Pasha, it was probably produced around 1741. The plain background and direct stare at the viewer are in keeping with other pastels by Liotard from this period.

Although it has not been possible to confirm the identity of the sitter, this is a fine portrait. Liotard mainly limits his colours to a cool jade green for the background and white and brown tones for the clothing. The man’s pale face, with its open and inquiring expression, is consistent with the subtle tones of the picture. Liotard skilfully uses the pastel to capture the texture and sheen of the various fabrics -- for example, the reflected light on the gold band, the folds of the sleeve and the coat’s ermine trims.

Style: Baroque, Rococo
A weathered but picturesque watermill sits in a landscape that includes several idealised peasants engaged in tasks such as fishing, collecting water and washing clothes.

Although this landscape has an air of decorative artificiality, even theatricality, Boucher includes sufficient detail to suggest it may have some basis in his direct observation of an actual place. These details include a net hanging to the left of the mill door, a makeshift outdoor privy to the right of the door, and a small tower at the end of the bridge that seems to be a dovecote or a tollgate. Other details that add to the sense this is based on a real scene include the weeds hanging from the millwheel and a low dam that we can just glimpse further upstream through the arches of the bridge. The bridge’s central arches also frame two poles or stakes that may support fishing nets, reinforcing the impression this is a working landscape. White doves gather around a dovecote in the mill’s thatched roof.

Many of these elements also appear in a drawing by Boucher in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Although signed, this drawing is undated and it is not possible to say if it was made before or after the painting, which Boucher has signed and dated (on the boat to the left of the picture). Although it is unlikely that the drawing was made on site, it may be based upon a study or sketch of somewhere that Boucher had visited. One potential clue is provided by an engraving made in 1772 after the drawing, which has the title Moulin près de Chatou (Mill near Chatou). On the right bank of the Seine, a few miles west of Paris, Chatou would become a favourite haunt of painters around 1900. However, its watermill was replaced by a windmill in 1684 and throughout the eighteenth century its bridge was made of wood rather than stone. If, as the print’s title suggests, the mill in Boucher's drawing was near Chatou rather than in Chatou itself, the scene may be based on a neighbouring hamlet. One possibility is Mauport, also on the right bank, which in the late seventeenth century had a watermill and stake net. These may have still existed in the 1750s. Mills appear in other landscapes by Boucher, including the mill at Quinquengrogne, near Charenton, on the south-eastern outskirts of Paris.  The mill in this picture has similar architectural features to the Quinquengrogne mill, but it has a simpler structure and lacks the striking elevated position of the site at Charenton.

Watermills were a popular subject among eighteenth-century French artists, who particularly looked to pictures of them by Dutch painters of the previous century such as Jacob van Ruisdael. Boucher owned a large chalk drawing by Ruisdael that featured  cottages and a watermill. But there are also echoes here of Claude, particularly in Boucher’s use of tall trees to frame the scene as if it were a stage set. Against a pale sky, the entire landscape is suffused with silvery-green tones which Boucher counterbalances with areas of brighter colour, most notably the red items of clothing. The painting shows his characteristically fluid handling of paint.

Style: Rococo, Neoclassical
A man in a red cap, fur-lined robe and luxurious fur cape sits in a luxuriously furnished room, painting a picture. This is Saint Luke, patron saint of painters and physicians, who was thought to have painted a picture of the Virgin and Child and is called 'Luke, the beloved physician' in Saint Paul's Epistle to the Colossians (4: 14). Many of the objects around him refer to these professions, and his symbol, the ox, lies at his side like a large dog.

The picture is full of information on how Renaissance painters worked, although they perhaps did not always work in such comfortable surroundings. Saint Luke is seated at a three-legged easel, similar in appearance to a modern easel, and his work rests on an adjustable ledge supported by movable pegs. The painting itself, which shows the Virgin and Child, is already in its frame (various paintings in our collection show evidence of having been painted in their frames). The saint is working on the Virgin's head and his wooded palette is set for painting flesh: in its centre he has prepared a pink by mixing white, red lake and vermillion pigments. He supports his hand with a mahlstick with a padded grey knob on the end, which rests on the frame, and has a selection of brushes -- some in his hands, one resting on the ledge of the easel -- with wooden handles. There is more equipment on a stool next to him: a knife; a mussel shell, possibly containing shell gold; and a glazed pot, presumably containing oil or varnish, or a thinner, or something for cleaning brushes.

Behind the saint's head is a large convex mirror, reflecting his back, the painting and the easel. The room in which he is working has an arched wooden ceiling, two windows -- one is only visible in the mirror -- and a tiled floor. The window on the right is glazed and there is a carved wooden bench on the back wall. Above it hang two canisters of basketwork, the protective packaging in which urine flasks -- the physician's characteristic tool -- were then kept. Above these are two shelves, the lower one partially covered by a purple curtain. Several books rest on it, stacked in some disorder, fore-edges facing outwards as they would have been at this period. There are red and blue tags stuck between the pages of three of them, perhaps to mark important passages. On the top shelf are various pots and jars, doubtless pharmacist's containers for drugs.

This painting and The Virgin standing in a Niche are the back and front of the right wing of a triptych. No other parts of this altarpiece are known to survive but the centre panel probably showed a Virgin and Child. The left wing may have depicted a patron, perhaps with his saint (see Panel from a Triptych for example).

Style: High Renaissance