wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
In a dark interior framed by a stone arch, an elegantly dressed young woman plays a harpsichord for the man leaning on the instrument. Music is often related to love in Dutch paintings, but in contrast to other genre scenes of music making the couple don't appear to be flirting. The young woman is concentrating on her sheet of music, and the man only dares to glance coyly towards his companion.

The Latin inscriptions on the instrument provide a witty and ironic commentary and identify this as a scene of courtship. The words ‘SOLI DEO GLORIA’ ('Glory to God alone') appear below the keys, implying that the young woman is playing solely for the glory of God. Her lowered gaze and upright posture express dignity and emotional restraint. But the inscription on the open lid reads ‘ACTA VIRUM PROBANT’ ('actions prove the man'): the young woman’s admirer, slouching over the instrument, is about to take more active steps. Through the open door in the right background we can see a pageboy approaching, carrying a theorbo (a large type of lute). The man will soon try to charm the woman by suggesting an intimate duet, which was at the time a common metaphor for two people joined in harmonious love.

The harpsichord was the largest stringed keyboard instrument in use from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, and the one depicted here was probably painted after an existing model. Common examples like this one were decorated with patterned paper with printed mottoes and biblical quotations. A similar design of seahorses and arabesque patterns above the keyboard can be found in Johannes Vermeer's Lady at a Virginal (Royal Collection). The painted instruments were probably inspired by the ones built by the famous Ruckers workshop in Antwerp.

As well as demonstrating his wit here, Jan Steen has also proven his mastery in rendering different materials; the surfaces of the woven tapestry hanging in the background and the bright, shiny satin of the women’s skirt and bodice are especially noteworthy. By employing the device of the painted stone arch that frames the scene and focuses the viewer’s attention, we are made to feel as if we are spying on the couple.

Steen wrote his own name just above the keyboard of the harpsichord, typically where the instrument maker would have signed his work. The inscription also bears the date the painting was made. The last two numbers are no longer legible to the naked eye, but under the microscope the last number can be read as '9'. Stylistic similarities with other paintings by Steen from around the same time seem to confirm that the work was painted in 1659, during the short period when the artist lived in Warmond, a village north of Leiden.

This was the first painting by Jan Steen to enter the National Gallery's collection, when in 1871 it was bought with the rest of the collection of Sir Robert Peel (1788--1850), former prime minister and trustee of the Gallery.

Style: Baroque
The scene in this altarpiece is set in what appears to be a narrow paved courtyard open to the sky. There are doorways at left and right on the ground floor and a colonnade on the floor above, with a balustrade of roundels on the top floor. The Virgin Mary sits on a carved throne beneath a red brocade canopy. A length of cloth of gold brocade suspended from ropes hangs behind her and continues over the seat and steps of her throne, forming a cloth of honour. She gazes demurely at the ground, and holds a white cloth on which the infant Christ sits. He looks in our direction and raises his hand. Two little angels playing musical instruments perch at the back of the throne.

The saint on the left who is a Franciscan cardinal bishop must be Saint Bonaventure. He holds an unusual emblem -- a thorny Crucifix with a pelican in her nest on top. The pelican symbolises the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, as the bird was believed to feed her chicks with her own blood if necessary. On the right of the throne, Saint Francis, wearing the white monk’s habit of the Franciscan Order and bearing a Crucifix, gazes at us and directs our attention to the Virgin and Child. The hand he extends towards them is marked with the stigmata (wounds that miraculously appeared on his body in places corresponding to Christ’s crucifixion wounds). Each of the saints introduces an unidentified male donor to the Virgin and Child. In the Catholic Church one of the roles of saints is to act as intercessors on behalf of the faithful, forming a link between the earthly and divine realms.

The saints place one hand protectively on the donors' shoulders. The donor on the left is depicted in profile, gazing in adoration at the Virgin and Child. He has removed his hat in deference to them, and it hangs from the tips of his fingers. He wears an expensive cloak of black silk brocade; the fringe of tiny brushstrokes at its hem suggests that is it lined in a costly black fur. The donor on the right, who wears a sword and gold jewellery, has placed his hat on the floor and clasps his hands in prayer, turning slightly out of true profile towards us. The two men have similar colouring and are not unlike in their facial features, suggesting that they may be related to one another. There does not appear to be enough difference in age for them to be father and son -- perhaps they are brothers. The presence of the Franciscan saints suggests that the altarpiece was commissioned for a chapel in a church owned by the Franciscan Order, to which the two donors were especially dedicated.

This is an early work by Giovenone, produced while he was still influenced by the style of Defendente Ferrari (about 1480/5--about 1540), who worked in Piedmont. The top of the panel was originally rounded, but an additional 5 cm has been added to it. There are several long vertical splits in the painting at the points where the different planks that make up the panel have separated over time.

Style: High Renaissance
A young soldier looks up in desperation at the horse bolting towards him, its hoof outstretched to trample him down. The beast throws back its head, frothing at the mouth as it whinnies in terror. The soldier’s own horse rolls to the ground; splayed over the rocks beside it, an armoured foot soldier lies dead. Battle rages in the background. The costumes of both men suggest that this battle scene is set during the civil war that raged in England between 1642 and 1651.

Tschaggeny worked in England probably in or about 1840--50, when it is thought he painted this picture. He was well regarded in his native Belgium, particularly for the paintings of horses that were his speciality, although he did produce genre and marine paintings as well. In 1842, King William II of the Netherlands commissioned him to paint a portrait of the horse he had ridden during the Battle of Waterloo.

Style: Realist, Romantic
As with many of Turner's paintings that were never exhibited in his lifetime the title of this picture was not his choice. Instead, it was decided on some 50 years later when an inventory was being made of the Turner Bequest (the gift of his paintings he left to the nation in his will).

We can’t be sure that it shows the north Kent seaside town of Margate, but the white cliffs just visible on the horizon recall other views of Margate by Turner. He first came to Margate aged 11, when his parents sent him to a school in the old town. He returned ten years later to sketch, and from the 1820s became a regular visitor, finding refuge there from London. In 1833 he began a relationship with the twice-widowed Sophia Booth, living in her house, which had magnificent views over Margate harbour. Although Turner and Mrs Booth also lived together in Chelsea, he continued to travel regularly on the steamboat between London and Margate until the year before his death. As Margate had also been the starting point for many of Turner’s trips to Europe, he was very familiar with views of it from the open sea.

This painting belongs to group of around 20 late sea-paintings from the Turner Bequest, together with several others not in the Bequest, which Turner did not exhibit. These pictures are difficult to date precisely, but the majority, perhaps all, were painted between 1835 and 1845. As here, many of these pictures have a relatively low horizon created by a line of breaking waves or just a hint of distant shoreline. Whether this picture is of Margate is not that important, as the distance from the shore and the weather conditions would have made a detailed study of the buildings impossible.

Instead, the painting is a fine example of Turner’s lifelong preoccupation with the changing character of the sky and the sea. Around one third of Turner’s oil paintings are maritime pieces, and from the mid-1820s until his death he painted more sea subjects than any other. But although the sea always had powerful symbolic associations for Turner, these late paintings remain grounded in observation rather than imagination. In particular, Turner was interested in the power of the wind to stir up the waves. If this painting is the record of a storm, it is passing and blue sky is now appearing.

Although Turner was painting sky and sea, the paint has an almost sculptural quality, especially the use of clotted impasto. You can see this distinctly in the way Turner built up the clouds and used a thin slab of thickly applied white paint to suggest white cliffs on the central horizon. Turner also used a variety of brushstrokes, which in some areas look like scratches, to recreate the choppiness of the waves and the wisps of spray. Scale is ambiguous and objects hard to identify. A curled shape in the lower right corner may be a boat's sail, but we can't be sure.

Style: Realist, Romantic, Georgian, Victorian
A boy sings from a partbook while his music master beats time with his finger and perhaps sings along. A woman leans her arm against the teacher's shoulder, her head tilted with a faraway look as if she is listening. A youth in a red cap with a white ostrich plume accompanies the boy on a viol da gamba, while a young man behind him plays the recorder. The music master may be a portrait of Nicola Maffei from Mantua, who commissioned Titian's Supper at Emmaus (Louvre, Paris) and may also have commissioned The Music Lesson.

Although the music book seems to be painted in a lot of detail, the black paint of the notes is smudged; the music may never have been legible and is not a copy of a real piece of music. The theme of music-making is often associated in art with lovemaking and the passing of time.

When it was listed in the collection of Vincenzo Gonzaga, 7th Duke of Mantua in 1626--7 and in the collection of the English king, Charles I, in 1630, the painting was said to be by Titian. Later its poor condition led to doubt as to whether it was really by him. The painting hadn't been cleaned or restored for over 200 years and it was covered with a layer of opaque yellowish varnish almost as thick as the paint itself.

As a result, for many years The Music Lesson was believed to have been painted in the early 1600s by an artist imitating the style of Titian. A member of the National Gallery's conservation team noticed that the weave of the canvas on which the picture was painted is similar to canvases of the early sixteenth century, and suggested that further investigation be carried out.

Cleaning and technical examination revealed that the painting has much in common with pictures painted by Titian and his workshop in the 1530s. The materials used and the way in which the paint was applied is similar to those in paintings from the first part of Titian's career. Quite a few significant changes were made to the composition during painting: the woman's arm once rested on the man's other shoulder and the head of the boy with the recorder was originally tilted the other way. These sorts of changes are typical of those seen in paintings by Titian. However, the rendering of the figures and the surface execution of fabrics and flesh are rather rote, if still reminiscent of Titian's style. So the painting is likely to be a workshop production overseen by the master.

This type of picture -- a group of figures with the suggestion of a story or portraiture -- was made popular by Giorgione, with whom Titian associated closely in his youth. The National Gallery's painting is similar in subject and setting to the scene of music instruction in Giorgione's The Three Ages of Man  and Titian's The Interrupted Concert of about 1511--12 (both in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence). If The Music Lesson was painted in the 1530s, it would link Titian's earlier paintings of music-making in the style of Giorgione to his more erotic paintings of nude women with musicians painted later in his career, such as Venus with an Organist and Cupid (Prado, Madrid) of about 1555.

Style: High Renaissance
Two sailing boats -- a flat-bottomed kaag and smaller, more open weyschuit, which had a similar rig -- are shown in the foreground. They appear to be at the mouth of a harbour or estuary. One sails towards and the other away from a black buoy. This is a similar composition to another van de Velde painting in the National Gallery: Two Small Vessels and a Dutch Man-of-War in a Breeze.

In the background a man-of-war, or battleship, is at anchor, while another lies in the far distance. A third, to the right, is under sail. The Dutch Navy was one of the most powerful in the world at the time, powerful enough to launch a successful raid on the British Navy around the time this painting was made (the Raid on the Medway in 1667).

This seascape may have been made by artists in van de Velde’s studio, copying an earlier work by him.

Style: Baroque
This young saint holding a banner and the model of a fortress was once thought to be Saint George who saved the city of Lydda from a ferocious dragon -- a red cross on a white background is the flag associated with him. However the lack of a dragon or any armour make this identification unlikely; he may be Terentius, patron saint of Pesaro in the Italian Marches. A similar-looking saint appears on a 1482 triptych by Carlo Crivelli (Brera, Milan); he is Saint Venantius, patron saint of Camerino near Ancona.

The saint appears to be standing high on a parapet, as the horizon is below the level of his waist, and he is set against a great expanse of sky. The low horizon suggests that the panel may originally have been displayed high up. The saint wears four unusual gold buttons or ornaments on the shoulder of his cloak, which falls into a series of carefully observed swags and folds, suggesting that Girolamo da Santacroce had made detailed preparatory studies from a real piece of cloth. In the places where the fabric catches the light, the pattern of the gold damask weave is wonderfully revealed in tiny hatched brushstrokes. The saint’s brocade robe is also carefully rendered. In the background a shepherd plays his flute beneath a tree while his sheep graze nearby.

Originally this panel and A Youthful Saint reading would probably have flanked a central image of the Virgin and Child in a type of multi-panelled altarpiece known as a polyptych. By the time this picture was painted it was more usual in Venice to include all the holy figures together in one unified composition, known in Italian as a sacra conversazione ('holy conversation'). Unlike a polyptych, a sacra conversazione suggests a psychological connection between the figures. The patron's choice of the more traditional polyptych may relate to the location or community for which the altarpiece was made.

Gerolamo da Santacroce trained with the Venetian painter Gentile Bellini, and his style is derived from the late works of Giovanni Bellini, who he may have assisted around 1507 when he was working at the Doge's Palace in Venice. The earliest work certainly by Gerolamo is derived from Bellini's San Zaccaria Altarpiece and was painted in 1516. Here, the contemplative mood of the painting, the grassy landscape with its hilltop town beneath a large sky streaked with clouds, the treatment of the drapery and the oval shape of the saint’s face are all reminiscent of Bellini’s late style.

Style: High Renaissance
This painting is signed and dated on the piece of paper resting on the marble ledge. The writing says: '+ 1504 / Andreas. Cordelle. Agij. Dissipulus. / iouanis. Bellini pinxit.' It means: 'Andrea thread and needle follower of Giovanni Bellini painted this in 1504.' Andrea Previtali signed himself 'thread and needle' because his father was a tailor. He also used a range of other signatures. Previtali's painting is similar, especially in the figure of John the Baptist, to Giovanni Bellini's Sacra Conversazione Giovanelli of about 1500, now in the Accademia, Venice. This may explain why Previtali signed Bellini's name as well as his own, although he may have actually trained with Cima.

The infant Christ sits naked on the Virgin's lap and places a ring on Saint Catherine's finger. The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine  is a story in The Golden Legend, and tells how the noblewoman Catherine of Alexandria who had converted to Christianity had a vision of receiving a wedding ring from Christ. Because Saint Catherine is receiving the ring, Saint John the Baptist appears as a bystander or witness (he is also positioned slightly behind the Virgin) but there is no reason to suppose that he would have been considered less important than Saint Catherine. The painting would probably have been used for private devotion at home and the choice of saints probably related to the person or family who commissioned it.

A painting by Previtali in S. Giobbe in Venice has the same composition and is approximately the same size as the National Gallery's painting. A tracing or cartoon may have been used for both pictures. The paintings are not identical in the smaller details (for example, the Virgin's headdress is more elaborate in the S. Giobbe version and Saint Catherine's hat is striped) and the sky and landscape are entirely different. The double veil worn by the Virgin in the S. Giobbe version tends to be more common in Italian paintings from the late fifteenth century, meaning that the S. Giobbe version is likely to be the earlier version and the National Gallery painting the later one. The S. Giobbe version is also in much better condition than the National Gallery's picture.

The painting is currently undergoing conservation. By the time the National Gallery purchased the painting in 1894, the paint in Saint Catherine's drapery and in the yellow lining of the Virgin's robe had 'perished in remarkable manner, being blotched and discoloured like the plaster on a mildewed wall, or as though eaten away by acid'. The picture, painted on a wooden panel, had become disfigured by cracks which passed through Christ's forehead and arm, and was covered with a very thick and discoloured varnish. However, the sky and the marble ledge remained in good condition -- in fact, finger prints can still be observed in the clouds, which are a characteristic of Previtali's early work.

Style: High Renaissance
Pan, the god of fields and forests, rushes towards the virginal nymph Syrinx, who flails her arms as she teeters on the edge of the river Ladon, a frog swimming out of her path. The amorous god had pursued Syrinx across Arcadia and here, seeing her escape route blocked, tries to grab her. Hearing her prayer for help to escape her unwanted suitor, the river nymphs are about to transform her into reeds. Pan later made musical pipes out of these very reeds.

This small oil on copper painting illustrates a story from Metamorphoses, a long verse narrative retelling ancient Greek and Roman legends by the Roman poet Ovid. The figures were probably painted by the Flemish artist Hendrick van Balen the Elder, while the landscape was executed by an artist working in the style of Jan Brueghel the Elder, who specialised in painting landscapes and flowers.

The composition was probably inspired by a print of the same subject by Hendrick Goltzius, which also shows Pan clasping at Syrinx’s cloak, her figure echoing the arching shape of the tall riverbank reeds, foretelling her fate. The painting also repeats other details from the print, such as buildings in the distance and the flowering plants in front of the figures.

This picture was altered slightly at some point in its history. Someone, perhaps an earlier owner, seems to have found the depiction of Pan's genitalia too graphic -- overpaint is visible in this area, obscuring what was originally there.

Style: Baroque
An angry tide surges around two small transport boats heading for disaster under a stormy sky. The crew of the kaag, desperate to avoid collision with the fast approaching smalschip, have released the horizontal spar to take the wind out of the mainsail. This way, the vessel will slow and -- with luck -- pass safely behind the smaller craft. A smaller open boat heads towards them, two men pointing at the impending catastrophe.

The sideways sweep of the three vessels and their converging diagonal lines strengthen the tension. A weak beam of sunlight illuminates the sail of the kaag; it highlights the drama but, together with the flag still flying at the masthead, perhaps also suggests a ray of hope in a pitiless sea. Such pictures were popular in seventeenth-century Holland because they were exciting, but they were also a reminder of the dangers encountered by the hundreds of mariners who were an important part of the country’s prosperity.

Style: Baroque
The Virgin Mary is seated on a bench, holding the infant Christ who grasps his mother's mantle with his left hand while he raises his right to bless Saint Francis. The saint kneels before him with his hands raised to reveal his stigmata -- marks on his body which correspond to the wounds suffered by Christ during the Crucifixion. Golden rays radiate from Saint Francis's stigmata on his hands and side. The haloes painted with fine cross hatching in shell gold are typical of Mazzolino and can also be seen in his Nativity with a Shepherd.

Saint Joseph stands on the right, leaning on his stick, with his eyelids lowered or closed. Mazzolino also showed Saint Joseph slumbering in the Nativity with a Shepherd. Behind Saint Francis stands Saint Elizabeth, who touches the head of her son -- and Christ's cousin -- John the Baptist. The chubby infant is holding a lamb and trying to protect it from the monkey perched on a nearby ledge. Elizabeth is depicted as an old woman as she miraculously conceived her son in old age after many years of being barren. She looks down at her nephew, Christ, with her mouth open and palm raised as if speaking to him.

A building with a very unusual portico is painted in the background. Two plain pillars support a relief of battling Amazons. The block above it is decorated with a similar classical subject. On either side of this there are two imaginary sculpted scenes of military leaders on plinths addressing groups of soldiers. Roman military standards are displayed in the background. The classical architecture may be intended to represent the pagan world that has been superseded by a new Christian era.

The monkey is a puzzling feature. It seems to be threatening the lamb, a common attribute of John the Baptist and a symbol of Christ's sacrifice. It has been suggested that the monkey might represent evil, but the Baptist seems to be enjoying its antics so it may just have been included as a decorative element. Monkeys appear in other pictures by Mazzolino, such as the Holy Family with the Infant John the Baptist and Saint Elisabeth (Bargellesi collection, Milan) and the Dispute in the Temple (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). In a Holy Family by Mazzolino in the Louvre, the infant Baptist holds out cherries for a monkey. A monkey also appears in Garofalo's The Virgin and Child enthroned with Saint Dominic and Saint Catherine of Siena.

This was one of the paintings bequeathed in 1830 to the National Gallery by the Revd William Holwell Carr. In addition to Mazzolino's Holy Family he also bequeathed two other Ferrarese pictures: Garofalo's Saint Augustine with the Holy Family and Saint Catherine of Alexandria and The Conversion of Saint Paul by Giacomo Panizzati.

Style: High Renaissance