wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This small octagonal painting shows Christ being baptised in the river Jordan by Saint John the Baptist. Christ stands knee-deep in the water; the artist has painted delicate wavy white stripes around his knees to show where his body has disturbed the water's surface. He has also taken care to include the gilding on the edge of Christ's loincloth, a detail which distinguishes him as divine.

Saint John the Baptist has just poured a small bowl of water over Christ's head and the Holy Ghost descends in the form of a dove, emanating golden rays of heavenly light: a sign of God's blessing. The design of the composition is similar to Niccolò di Pietro Gerini's altarpiece The Baptism of Christ, which is also dated to 1387.

Like Gerini's altarpiece, this panel was probably made for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Its size suggests that it was part of the predella of a large polyptych (an altarpiece made up of several panels). Three other panels that share the same decorative border belonged to the same predella and are now in the Louvre, Paris. John the Baptist is shown beheaded on the same panel as the feast of Herod and Salome with her mother Herodias; another panel shows the Crucifixion and the last, scenes from the life of Saint James, including his exorcism of the sorcerer Hermogenes and his beheading. One more panel with a continuation of the scene of Saint James and the sorcerer Hermogenes shows Hermogenes throwing his book of magic in the river after his exorcism. This picture, now in a private collection in the United States, has the same shape as our panel and may have been placed nearby.

Predella panels usually featured stories from the lives of the saints depicted in the main tier of an altarpiece. Since the three panels in the Louvre came from the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli and showed scenes from the lives of Saint James and Saint John the Baptist, they probably came from the altarpiece that Agnolo Gaddi made for the church's chapel dedicated to Saint James and the feast of Saint John the Baptist's beheading (now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). Lorenzo Monaco was a pupil of Gaddi, so it's plausible that he would have been put to work on the smaller predella panels.

The altarpiece was commissioned by the husband of Piera degli Albizzi after her death in 1387. Two further panels probably formed part of the predella: one shows a woman identified as Piera with her four daughters (now in a private collection in Milan) and another (now lost) showed her husband Bernardo di Cino Bartolini de' Nobili with their sons.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
William Seguier was a picture dealer and picture cleaner. He was Superintendent of the British Institution from its foundation in 1805, Surveyor, Cleaner and Repairer of the King's Pictures from 1820 and Keeper of the National Gallery from its foundation in 1824. He continued in all three positions until his death in 1843. While each of the posts Seguier held involved considerable executive responsibility and much hard work, none of them was intended to be a full-time job.

Seguier was born on 9 November 1772, one of the nine children of David Seguier, a dealer in prints and pictures, and his wife Elizabeth Thwaites. William Seguier's training in the trade and the fact that he had never been to Italy and had a Cockney accent were to prompt continual jibes, but it was conceded that although he lacked airs and graces he was an excellent judge of pictures. By about 1800 he had established his own picture dealing and picture cleaning business.  He advised many private collectors on purchasing, hanging and cleaning the pictures in their collections and acted as an agent in the saleroom. George Watson Taylor MP, who commissioned this portrait of Seguier, was one of his most wealthy clients.

Sir George Beaumont and Lord Farnborough, both of whom had employed Seguier in the care of their collections, steered him into official roles. Both were founding governors of the British Institution, established in 1805 to encourage 'rising British artists' through the display and sale of their work. They were largely responsible for appointing Seguier as its Superintendent.

Lord Farnborough, a close friend of King George IV, encouraged the appointment of Seguier as Surveyor, Cleaner and Repairer of the King's Pictures in 1820. When he began, the number of pictures in the Royal Collection was unknown -- Seguier set about creating an inventory. As a cleaner and restorer, Seguier believed that pictures in reasonably good condition should be left alone. He occasionally acted for the King at picture sales and it was said that the 'King does nothing without Mr. Seguier's advice'.

When the National Gallery was established in 1824, William Seguier was appointed as its first Keeper. He was responsible for the preservation of the pictures, superintending the arrangements for admission, and valuing and negotiating the purchase of pictures. It opened with 38 paintings bought from Sir John Julius Angerstein's collection (which Seguier had valued). Sir George Beaumont's offer to give his own collection to the Gallery may have been influenced by the knowledge that Seguier would be their Keeper.

Jackson's portrait shows Seguier at the age of 58. The artist, an old friend of the sitter, died before finishing the portrait. The hands are missing and it is not clear whether Seguier is holding official papers or a sheaf of prints.

Style: Neoclassical, Georgian
We look down from a height on a rocky outcrop of ground surrounded by trees, their reflection caught in the tranquil stream drifting past. The crooked trunks are silvery and smooth, and the roots are knotted and tangled among the stones. The woods are dark and dense, but unthreatening -- rather, they invite exploration. Dawn is breaking far beyond them, and there’s a pathway through the undergrowth towards the light.

A young shepherd leans on his crook, some of his flock cropping the short grass beside him. He looks back over his shoulder at something unseen; his movement has disturbed one of his sheep, which looks back at him. Beyond them more sheep graze, while two snuffle at the ground among the gnarled tree roots higher up. Behind the shepherd, a single curved plank is slung across the stream as a bridge. The water bubbles quietly beneath it. Although the sun shines brightest on the sheep close to him, it’s the glowing red of the boy’s jacket in the shadow that serves to brighten the whole picture, and which catches the eye first.

Rubens’s love of the natural world is shown in the meticulous, realistic detail with which he has painted the various textures -- rocks and pebbles, shaggy wool, stringy blades of grass, water and myriad kinds of leaf. Many of his exquisite drawings still exist in the museums and galleries of the world, revealing to us his fascination and understanding of nature. He made them in the open air and then used them in his paintings, which were made later in his studio.

Like many of Rubens’s landscapes painted on panel, it appears that this one was made in two stages: Rubens first painted the central section, then he added smaller panels at each side, extending the image to include the surrounding trees and the distant dawn. He later used the same setting with a few changes as a basis for one of his most famous landscapes, Peasants with Cattle by a Stream in a Woody Landscape ('The Watering Place').

Style: Baroque
This is one of three panels of the main tier of a large altarpiece made for the Benedictine convent church of San Pier Maggiore, Florence. It was placed to the right of a central image showing the coronation of the Virgin.

We see saints arranged in neat rows, looking respectfully towards the coronation. As in the panel to the left of the central scene, the saints are painted in detail. While their facial features are quite similar, the artist has taken care to show their individuality though their skin tone, hair colour and costume. They can be identified by the objects that they hold -- their attributes. These are often the instruments used to torture them for their Christian faith. Kneeling at the front is Saint Catherine of Alexandria, resting her right arm on the spiked wheel upon which she was tortured before being beheaded. The palm she carries is a symbol of martyrdom. Saint Lawrence holds one too, along with the grill upon which he was burned.

As in the left-hand panel, several of the saints depicted here had particular significance for the wealthy commissioners of the altarpiece, the Albizzi family. Saint Agnes, shown in the second row in blue, holds a lamb -- her name means lamb in Latin -- which connects to the Albizzi family's fortune, which had come from trading in wool.

The choice of saints also reflects the altarpiece's use as a backdrop to an important religious ceremony. When a new bishop of Florence was appointed, he was enthroned before this picture and offered the nuns of the convent a ring. This symbolised his marriage to the church, which had been founded by the first bishop of the city and patron saint, Saint Zenobius. Saint Catherine of Alexandria, according to legend, was married to Christ when he offered her a ring. The city's other patron saint, John the Baptist, can be seen at the front of the second row at Christ's right hand. The camel-hair tunic tells us who he is, as this is what he wore while preaching in the wilderness. His right hand hints at his role as a prophet: he gesticulates as though speaking.

The position of the saints in the panels relates to their significance but also to the traditional format of pairing particular saints together. Saint Lawrence, at the edge of the front row, appears opposite Saint Stephen in the left panel, a conventional pairing. Other pairings were less usual but still explain the position of the saints. Saint Jerome, in the penultimate row and wearing a red cardinal's hat, is shown next to Saint Augustine, who had a vision of Jerome after his death. This visual network of associations adds meaning and complexity to what looks like a simple functional arrangement.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Elegant couples rest after the hunt in an idyllic sunlit landscape, reflecting the traditional association of hunting and courtship. The gushing fountain, the woman holding flowers and the flirtation between the man holding a falcon and his companion add to the light-hearted romantic atmosphere. Falconry was a popular aristocratic pursuit. In the background, a man attempts to engage two women in conversation; one of them points away from him towards the landscape or the riders at the fountain, as if finding a reason to leave.

Dogs stare longingly at a group of dead animals in the bottom left corner. While the hare and duck  were presumably victims of the falcon, the deer and boar allude to an earlier scene depicted in The Boar Hunt, a companion to this painting, also owned by the National Gallery. The bugle -- a type of horn -- placed beside the animals is the instrument used by a male figure in the earlier painting to gather the hunting party. The figure in the background holding a parasol may be derived from a similar figure in Antonio Tempesta's (1555--1630) engraving of a Lady observing a Stag Hunt (Metropolitan Museum, New York).

This popular subject was influenced by seventeenth-century Dutch scenes of everyday life. The bright colouring and visible brushstrokes suggest the influence of the celebrated Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens. This painting and its pair, painted around 1700, set a precedent for later depictions showing groups of figures in countryside settings, known as //fêtes galantes//.

Style: Rococo
The dormition of the Virgin is the term used to refer to her death and literally means the 'falling asleep': the Virgin was thought to have died without any suffering. According to the Golden Legend, Saint John the Evangelist was miraculously brought to her side, followed by all the apostles (from wherever in the world they had been preaching the message of Christ). Together they performed the death rites for her.

The Virgin's chamber is suitably richly decorated. Her coverlet is red and gold, and the ceiling is coffered (lined with sunken panel indentations) -- a luxurious decorative detail which recalls classical architecture. The whole scene is framed by stone pillars and decorated with carved foliage, as was common in German painting in this period.

The saint in the white robes swinging the censer is Peter, who led the others in performing the rites, according to the legend. The clean-shaven figure in brown holding the palm leaf is John; the palm was given to him by an angel to carry to the Virgin. The legend also mentions Saints James and Paul by name, and they may be the more prominently depicted apostles in front of the bed. The picture is unusual in that it seems to show 13 apostles, when there were only 12. In order to fit them all into the space of the room and to show how crowded it is, the artist -- whose identity is as yet unknown -- has painted only the tops of the heads and haloes of some.

In front of the bed, a smaller figure kneels in prayer. He has a tonsure (a partly shaved hairstyle worn by male members of religious orders) and wears a hooded cloak, showing he is a monk; he is probably the person who commissioned the painting. The scroll he carries is inscribed in Latin with a prayer expressing his hope to join the Virgin in heaven.

This may have been made as part of a larger painting, possibly an altarpiece. There is a panel showing the Crucifixion at the Cistercian monastery at Stams in Tyrol, Austria, which is very similar in style to this painting. It is possible they both belonged to the same ensemble as a commission from the monastery.

Style: Gothic
This intriguing picture is Boilly's painted imitation of a print after one of his own compositions (possibly now lost). Although Boilly was an expert in trompe l’oeil, it is unlikely that he intended here to trick the viewer into thinking they are looking at an actual print, as the painting does not include any of the usual clues that would reveal the image to be a deception -- for example, a turned-up corner, a tear or crease in the paper or a supposedly broken sheet of glass over the print. Instead, this is an exercise in illusionism, as Boilly demonstrates how one medium (oil painting) can look like another (printing).

Here we see a girl in a fine white dress and bonnet sitting on a stone window ledge. On the wall behind her hang a bird in a cage, a plant and a bunch of carrots. On the window ledge itself is a bowl containing two goldfish, a small bottle filled with dark liquid, and a telescope. The girl holds a eyeglass in her right hand and, just to the left, there is another telescope, through which a young boy in the shadows is looking. Below the window is an antique stone frieze, which is partly covered by the fabric that spills out from inside the window.

The picture is painted almost entirely in tones of black, grey and white, and is intended to imitate the look of a monochrome print. As there are no lines in this ‘print’ (as we might expect, for example, in an etching), it is likely that Boilly intended to imitate a mezzotint, which can produce subtle effects of light and dark without using lines, and is particularly effective for reproducing paintings. Boilly enhances the illusion by painting a grey-blue mount with his signature around the image.

The picture shows Boilly’s technical virtuosity with oil paint as he depicts objects with the meticulous detail of a miniaturist. Not only does he paint a diverse range of materials and surfaces, including stone, glass, satin and skin, but several objects -- for example, the clear glass bowl filled with water and the bright metal telescope -- highlight his skill in painting reflective surfaces. The smooth painting technique is indebted to the ‘fine painters’ (fijnschilders) of seventeenth-century Holland, such as Gerrit Dou (with whom Boilly was compared) and Casper Netscher. These painters used the framing device of a figure sitting at a window in their paintings and often included a carved bas-relief below the windowsill.

In his picture Boilly, who was fascinated by optics, emphasises the activity of looking by including several optical devices, encouraging the viewer to consider what they are in fact seeing. When exhibited at the Salon of 1799, A Girl at a Window was praised for being ‘astonishingly true to life’. The phrase ‘true to life’ had a different significance at that time and could mean not only truth to reality but also, as here, truth to another medium -- in this instance, an oil painting that looks like a paper print.

Style: Neoclassical, Romantic
In this exuberant picture, Rubens seems to suggest that apotheosis -- a person being elevated to divine status -- is not a wholly majestic and dignified affair, as it is represented in many other contemporary paintings. Here, it seems that any great man taken to heaven and granted immortality by the gods has quite a journey ahead of him. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, dressed in a seventeenth-century version of Roman armour, is hauled up through the sky in a swirl of moving figures, his sword dangling below him.

The strong red of the Duke's billowing red cloak outlines him, emphasising his position at the centre of the figures that spin around him in a kaleidoscope of gold, cream, ochre and rosy pink. Two mythical beings give him a leg up from below, giving the impression that it’s no easy task. One of them casts a nervous eye over his shoulder at the threatening lion just entering the fray. Below the Duke, the allegorical figure of Envy reaches up to pull him down. Minerva, goddess of war and wisdom, and Mercury, the messenger of the gods, lead the Duke onward and upwards. On the left, the nude figures of the Three Graces reach up to hold out a crown of flowers towards the Duke, but his eyes are turned up towards his goal, high above on the left: the Temple of Virtue. There, Virtue and perhaps Abundance (the figure is not yet positively identified) await his arrival. All around, naked putti dance and caper or blow trumpets at the clouds, adding to the excitement and commotion of the scene.

This is a preparatory oil sketch for a painting intended to decorate a ceiling, as the circular form and the skilful foreshortening of the figures indicate. Rubens had met Buckingham in 1625 in Paris, where the Duke was attending the marriage by proxy of Charles I of England to Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII of France. In 1627, Buckingham commissioned the painting along with an equestrian portrait of himself for York House, his London residence.

A favourite of both Charles I and his father James I and VI, Buckingham clearly saw himself as almost as powerful as royalty. At one time it was supposed that the Apotheosis had been painted in 1628, after Buckingham’s assassination. It is now generally agreed that during his lifetime the flamboyant Duke liked the idea of an image that showed him being transported to heaven by the gods like a king, unaware that his death was closer than he thought. The painting outlived the Duke by around 400 years, but both ceiling and portrait were destroyed by fire in 1949 -- only this spectacular picture survives.

Style: Baroque, Stuart
A brown-haired man, dressed in black robes trimmed with brown fur, prays over a book that rests on a raised flower bed. There are no indications of his identity, but with his turned-up nose and strongly cleft chin he looks very like Massys' portrait of Peter Gillis (Collection of the Earl of Radnor, Longford Castle) -- it wouldn't be surprising if the two were related. The panel is probably the left wing of a small triptych.

Behind him, a stream runs through a wooded landscape. A man has brought an ox to drink, and a woman carries a jug on her head -- she may have come to collect water. Behind her is a gate made of wattle, and beyond the trees is a large thatched house and a dovecote with birds perched on the roof. People are approaching along a track which winds into the distance, towards blue mountains.

More than one artist may have worked on this panting. The landscape is somewhat in the style of Joachim Patinir. Its underdrawing seems to have been made by one artist, while another -- perhaps even two others -- painted it, making radical changes. The middle ground and figures, which seem to have been finished after the portrait was painted, are perhaps the work of one of Massys' assistants, while the distant landscape and principal figure may well have been by Massys himself.

A date of around 1520 would be consistent with the sitter's clothing and with the dating of the panel itself through dendrochronology, a method of determining the age of a piece of wood by analysing its pattern of rings.

Style: High Renaissance
This is a fragment of a painting in fresco, a technique that involved painting directly onto fresh plaster. It has been repainted and only a layer of tin remains on the haloes, which may originally have been gilded.

It once formed part of an image showing the burial of Saint John the Baptist and decorated the wall of the Manetti chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence. The entire chapel was decorated with frescoes that told the life of the saint in six large scenes.

Saint John was beheaded on the orders of King Herod, who had offered his stepdaughter Salome whatever she desired. Influenced by Herodias, her mother, she asked for John's head; Herodias disliked the saint because he criticised her marriage to Herod, her former husband's brother. The saint's disciples retrieved his body for burial. Here, two of them bow their heads in grief, gazing sorrowfully upon his body.

The series of frescoes were destroyed but 11 fragments -- cut from the wall by the English artist Thomas Patch -- survive in other European collections. Patch also made engravings after the frescoes in 1772; these are the only surviving record of their appearance. One other mourner from the same scene is now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance