wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
Jacques Cazotte (1719--1792) is best known as the author of Le Diable amoureux ('The Amorous Devil'), a tale about a devil disguised as a beautiful woman trying to take possession of a man, and other fantastical fiction. He was also a colonial administrator, a maker and supplier of fine wine, an amateur painter, a collector of old master paintings and a dabbler in counter-revolutionary circles.

Born in Dijon, Cazotte worked in Martinique until ill health forced him to retire. In 1760 he inherited a chateau at Pierry near Châlons-sur-Marne, including vineyards, which allowed him to live in ease and concentrate on producing and marketing his wines. In 1761 Cazotte married Elisabeth Roignan. The couple had three children.

From 1760 Cazotte began writing regularly, although an early work, his romantic fairy tale La Patte du Chat, had been published in 1741. His epic prose poem Ollivier, based on Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, was published in 1763 to immediate success. However, Cazotte’s life was to be cut short by the French Revolution. He saw the rise of Revolutionary fervour in France as a fight between Good, represented by Louis XVI, and Evil, represented by the Revolution. He wanted the monarchy to be strengthened and a return to the laws of the past to correct current abuses. Cazotte set out his political views in a series of letters, which turned out to be his undoing. After the letters were discovered in 1792, he was arrested and imprisoned for counter-revolution. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. On 25 September 1792, he was executed on the guillotine, where he met his death with great courage, exclaiming to the crowd: ‘I die as I have lived, faithful to God and to my king.’ All of Cazotte’s property, including his library and collection of 104 pictures (some, he claimed, by Poussin, Titian and Lesueur), was confiscated, leaving his widow and daughter destitute.

Perronneau’s portraits are known for their strong colours and bold mark-making. He uses sophisticated combinations of colour – for example blue and green in the flesh tones and pink, yellow and blue streaks in the sitters’ powdered hair. Perronneau's portrait is unusual in showing the sitter turned away from us, as though in lively conversation with someone to his right. Cazotte appears relaxed and amused, with his hat tucked under his arm. He wears a coat and waistcoat of salmon pink silk lined with white. The vivacity of the expression is matched by the brilliant handling of the pink costume. In these respects the portrait contrasts with the more direct approach of La Tour as shown in his portrait of Henry Dawkins. The Flemish lace of Cazotte’s shirt frill, which matches his ruffled cuff, is thrown into prominence by the black silk ribbon, known as a solitaire, tied round his wig at the back with the ends brought round and pinned under his lace frill.

The portrait may have been commissioned in 1763 to celebrate the success of Cazotte’s prose poem, Ollivier, or perhaps in 1753 when Perronneau became an Academician, which would be more consistent with Cazotte’s age here.

Style: Rococo, Neoclassical
This scene comes from the Book of Tobit, which is apocryphal in all Christian traditions except the Roman Catholic Church. Old and blind, Tobit had sent his son Tobias on a long journey to collect a debt on his behalf. Disguised as a man, the Archangel Raphael -- shown here with his large wings -- joined the youth as his protector. Tobias is shown dragging an enormous fish across the ground, watched closely by Raphael. The angel had instructed the boy to catch a fish, the organs of which could be used to cast away a demon and restore Tobit's sight. The huge fish clearly resisted being caught, injuring Tobias' arm, which is bound in a sling, in the process.

Our picture is one of several copies of Adam Elsheimer's original, now lost, which is known as the 'The Large Tobias' (there is a small version by the artist in Frankfurt). The copyist used copper, Elsheimer's favoured support, for this version, and the plate is engraved with a coat of arms. The most faithful reproduction of the original is likely to be the engraving by the Flemish artist Hendrick Goudt, who owned the original from 1611. A version in the National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, is closer in detail to the engraving; ours dates to a slightly later period, probably the mid-seventeenth century, at least 50 years after the original was made.

This scene gave the artist a reason to paint a rich variety of flora as well as a range of landscape views. A valley dotted with pasture and woods opens up on to a view of distant mountains. The view is partially covered by a leafy branch growing through the dense foliage of an exotic tree, which has the broad delicate flowers of a eucalyptus. The tree is one of the most unusual features of the painting as it only grew in its native Australia at the time. Its inclusion here may be explained by Elsheimer's friendship with the botanist Dr Johann Faber, who, like Elsheimer, was living in Rome when the original version of this picture was made. The first known European landing in Australia was in 1606 and Faber may have learned about the exotic tree through his network of contacts. He may have been the painting's patron or just provided its botanical references. The eucalyptus tree, like the poppies blocking Tobias' path, had a medicinal use; their inclusion might refer to the healing powers of the fish.

Style: Baroque
Wtewael's sumptuous picture, full of soft, subtle colour, shows the precursor to one of the most famous wars in mythology. The Greek poet Homer first told the story of the Trojan War in the Iliad, though there are now many versions.

In the background, among the trees, a wedding party of naked nymphs and satyrs is halted, frozen like white statues beneath the commanding arm of Eris (the personification of strife). Jupiter, ruler of the gods, has sent her to provoke a quarrel about which goddess is the most beautiful: Minerva, goddess of war, with her helmet and spear, and her owl hovering overhead; Juno, Jupiter's wife, her peacock in the trees above her; or Venus, goddess of love, with pearls in her hair. Jupiter chose the shepherd Paris, in reality a Trojan prince, to be the judge. Wtewael presents them naked as a bemused Paris offers Venus the golden apple marked 'To the Fairest'.

The goddesses had cheated: they each offered Paris a bribe. Minerva offered him unlimited power, Juno offered him untold riches and Venus offered him Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta and the most beautiful woman in the world -- perhaps no contest to a young man. And so the seeds of the Trojan War were sown in Wtewael's fertile paradise. Above her head cherubs prepare to crown Venus with laurels. Cupid, her son and god of erotic love, takes aim at Paris with his bow and arrow; Paris – and the world -- is lost.

But for the moment, Paris' flock and his dog lie down in the midst of peace and plenty, with a friendly camel nearby. A nymph and a satyr flirt among flowers. Fur nestles against flesh, silk against petals, luscious shells among feathery grasses -- but the wedding party look up in terror at Eris, their poses contorted and dramatic.

Wtewael painted the elongated forms and contrived, if graceful, poses of the three goddesses in the typically exaggerated Mannerist style, yet they are human and, with their glances, seemingly aware. Juno looks directly out at us, hand on hip, as if asking who could possibly agree with the verdict. Minerva's softly curved position is hardly warlike, although she gazes across at Venus with a knowing stare. Venus reaches across her body to take the prize, her eyes slightly unfocused as if her mind is already elsewhere. Paris' pose is designed to show off his muscular legs and gold sandals (and, incidentally, Wtewael's skill in painting them).

The subject of the Judgement of Paris, giving prominence to the nude female figure from various angles, was popular in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. There are two in the National Gallery's collection by Sir Peter Paul Rubens; one was probably made 1632-5 and the other about 1597-9. They are in a more realist style, without Wtewael's love of detailed opulence and fantasy.

Style: Mannerist, Baroque
Christ hangs from a T-shaped Cross, with sorrowing angels circling above him in a stormy sky. The Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist stand on either side, wringing their hands. The Cross has been wedged into place with sticks and stones. The skull -- seen from beneath and minus its jaw bone -- is probably that of Adam, the first man, but it's also a reference to Golgotha ('the place of the skull'), where Christ was crucified.

This image of the Crucifixion forms the central panel of a triptych probably painted in the workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aalst. It was evidently a popular composition: several versions of it survive, and they can be seen in the context of the evolution both of Coecke's paintings and those of Bernaert van Orley, his teacher. Van Orley seems to have been the first to place the Cross against a semicircle of grieving angels in around 1518, and he took the idea further in his Last Judgement (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp) of 1525. But the figure types in this painting, the theatrical movements and the exaggerated postures of the Virgin and Saint John are closer to Coecke's work than van Orley's, although the draughtsmanship is less skilful than Coecke's. The donors in the wings wear the fashions of the mid-1520s and all the parts of the triptych were probably manufactured at about that time, soon after Coecke became a master of the Antwerp Guild.

This panel was transferred to canvas in the nineteenth century, perhaps because one of the oak boards on which it was made had split vertically through Christ's left wrist.

Style: High Renaissance
A walled medieval garden is the setting for a scene from Christian legend. The Virgin Mary sits on a chair, the Christ Child on her knee. On the grass beside her are two elegantly dressed women, Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Mary Magdalene. Behind them Joseph, carrying a basket, has just come into the garden.

We can identify these figures by their attributes. A broken, spiked wheel and a sword -- the instruments of her martyrdom -- lie beside Saint Catherine, who wears a crown. Saint Mary Magdalene, in a stylish dress and hat, has a glass pot on the grass next to her, containing the oil with which she anointed Christ's feet.

In the centre, Christ places a ring on Saint Catherine's finger. The scene, traditionally known as the mystic marriage of Saint Catherine, was a way of visualising her spiritual union with Christ. According to her legend, when Catherine was young she had a dream in which Christ accepted her as his spouse and put a ring -- the ring of faith -- on her finger. Later, when the Roman emperor proposed to her, she refused: she was already married to Christ. The emperor had her executed. The mystic marriage was a very popular subject in northern European art -- another version is Gerard David's The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor.

It is a cultured gathering. Catherine and Mary Magdalene hold books and the Virgin turns the pages of another. Under the rose-covered pergola angels sing, play musical instruments or pick flowers. Both the enclosed garden -- the hortus conclusus of the Song of Solomon, a book of the Old Testament -- and roses were symbols of the Virgin in the Middle Ages. But the garden itself, with its high wall, neat beds and tidy paths, gives a good idea of what late medieval gardens were actually like, and the building behind is a typical fifteenth-century house. For people at that time, the Virgin and saints existed here and now, as well as in sacred history.

This small panel is the only Portuguese painting in our collection. We aren't sure who painted it, although they were clearly influenced by Netherlandish artists, such as Hans Memling, who were hugely fashionable across Europe in the late fifteenth century. The facial features of the figures, the angular folds of their draperies and the artist's interest in three-dimensional space recall the paintings of Frei Carlos, a Netherlandish monk who ran a workshop at the Espinheiro Monastery near Evora, Portugal, in the 1520s. When the painting arrived at the Gallery it was tentatively attributed to him, but its condition today makes it difficult to attribute to any particular artist.

The colours would once have appeared much brighter. The blue of the Virgin's dress was done using smalt which has turned brown. The pink draperies worn by Saints Catherine and Mary Magdalene and Joseph's robe would have been more colourful: the red lake pigment has faded. The green of the grass has also darkened, making it hard to see the plants and flowers scattered within it.

Style: High Renaissance
A woman seated in a rugged landscape is startled by the sudden appearance of an angel, who points to heaven while gesturing towards a sleeping boy in the distance. This is the angel appearing to Hagar, the Egyptian maidservant to Sara, wife of Abraham, as told in the Old Testament (Genesis 21: 17--19). Hagar bore Abraham a son, Ishmael, and was subsequently banished to the wilderness with her boy. When their supplies ran out and Ishmael was on the point of dying -- a drinking vessel lies empty beside him -- an angel appeared, pointing out a water source where they could drink and announcing to Hagar that her son would lead a great nation (the Ishmaelites). Hagar wears a gypsy’s hat in accordance with the long-established tradition of identifying Egyptians with gypsies -- the same hat is worn by the woman holding the infant Moses in Bartholomeus Breenbergh’s painting The Finding of Moses, also in our collection.

This is a mature work by the Genoese painter Assereto. The picture’s fluid brushwork and strongly naturalistic style are typical of the artist. Assereto’s gesticulating figures and boldly cropped composition lend drama to this biblical scene, while the subdued tones and limited colour range echo the sombre mood demanded by the subject.

Assereto treated the theme of the angel appearing to Hagar in the wilderness earlier in his career, in a painting in Palazzo Rosso, Genoa. The subject is frequently represented in seventeenth-century paintings; compare, for example, Guercino’s deeply moving rendition or Claude’s exquisitely detailed painting illustrating the same moment in the story, both of which are in our collection.

This is one of two Genoese paintings in the National Gallery from the collection of Sir Denis Mahon (1910--2011), the great scholar and collector of Italian Baroque paintings. The other is Valerio Castello’s The Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This serious-looking young man is Marco Barbarigo, known as 'Marco the Rich', Venetian consul in London in 1449 and Doge of Venice in 1485. Born in 1413 into a family of Venetian merchants, he ran the family business in London in the mid-1440s.

Barbarigo wears a dark purple chaperon, a fashionable fifteenth-century headdress for men that was made up of a padded ring; his dark brown hair is just visible at his left temple. The short patte or cape rests on his left shoulder and the long, scarf-like cornette hangs down his right side. His bright red houpelande -- a long-sleeved robe worn by both men and women in the later Middle Ages -- is trimmed with brown fur at the neck. Under it we can see the collar of his doublet and the white of his shirt. His clothes are rather old-fashioned for a date in the late 1440s, but Barbarigo was known to have had conservative tastes, at least in hats.

This portrait was apparently painted while he was in London: he holds a letter, written in Latin, addressed to 'the eminent and distinguished lord Marco Barbarigo, son of the late eminent lord Francesco, procurator of Saint Mark's'. The address at the bottom, 'Londonis', is partly hidden by his fingers; the letters 'f' and 'n' perhaps stand for fratri nostri ('our brother'). Marco's father Francesco died in August 1448, and Marco himself was made Venetian consul in London in February 1449. This appointment usually lasted a year, after which he may have returned to Venice to settle his father's affairs and marry (his first son was born around 1450).

The quality of the painting suggests that it was done by a follower of Jan van Eyck who was working in London in 1449/50. We don't know much about painters working in London at the time, but this one was very familiar with the artist's principles; he had probably been trained in Flanders. The bold colour scheme and strong lighting against a dark background are typical of van Eyck, as are the distorted proportions: the head is much too large in proportion to the body, and the face too large for the head. The painter has enlarged the features, especially the nose, which is shown in exaggerated profile. Perhaps Barbarigo, on the point of leaving London, commissioned a portrait from an artist working in the latest Netherlandish style to take home as a souvenir, possibly for his brothers. The painting was in Venice in the eighteenth century.

The narrow strip of bare wood around the edges was once covered by the frame, now lost. The portrait was painted in its frame, as was sometimes the practice in the fifteenth-century Netherlands (as in Campin's A Man and A Woman). The frame was perhaps painted before the portrait: there is a pale orange layer underneath the green background around the edges. The back of the panel was probably marbled in red, black and green, but is very damaged. Paintings were not always hung on walls in the late Middle Ages, as is usual now, and so the backs were sometimes decorated as they could also be seen.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Under the arches of a pink arcade, Bishop Guido of Assisi wraps a cloak around the naked Saint Francis of Assisi. The saint's discarded boots, shirt and hose lie in a heap on the floor. To the left, Francis's father, dressed in a stylish pink hat and a cloak with a decorative clasp, has snatched up his son's costly red robe. He gesticulates angrily at Francis while his companion tries to restrain him. Others watch in consternation, but in the background a cleric walks by peacefully reading a book, seemingly unaware of the furore.

This is the second of eight panels from the back of the San Sepolcro Altarpiece that narrate episodes from Saint Francis's life; they surrounded a large central image of Saint Francis in Glory (Berenson Collection, Villa I Tatti, Settignano). The altarpiece was painted for the Franciscan friars of Borgo San Sepolcro, for the high altar of their church there. Seven of the eight narrative scenes are in the National Gallery's collection -- this one would have been in the top row, immediately to the left of the central panel representing the saint's ecstasy.

Francis's rejection of his father occurred not long after the episode depicted in the adjacent panel, Saint Francis meets a Knight Poorer than Himself and Saint Francis's Vision of the Founding of the Franciscan Order, and was another step in Francis's renunciation of the world, a kind of inverse 'rags to riches' story. The two paintings were conceived as a pair: the receding lines of their architecture share a common focal point. According to the Legenda Maior, the saint's official biography, Francis sold his horse and some textiles and gave the money to the church. This enraged his father, a rich businessman, who wanted his son to become a merchant. He appealed to the bishop, seeking to disinherit his ungrateful son; in response, Saint Francis tore off his clothes and gave them back to his father, saying he no longer had any father but God.

The symbolism of dress runs through both this and the preceding scene: Francis gives his clothes to a poor knight and then casts them aside completely as a sign of his rejection of the world. His well-dressed father (silver has been detected under the blue of his robe) clutches Francis's luxurious outer garment (silver with a red glaze, as in the related scene of Francis meeting the poor knight) while the bishop covers the naked saint with his cope. Sassetta seems to have known Giotto's fresco of this scene at San Francesco d'Assisi. In it, Francis's father carries his son's clothes over his arm in the same way and is also restrained by his companions.

Sassetta has used architecture to add meaning to the scene. The pink arcades with their multiple piers and capitals and blue groin vaults  perhaps signify a church or monastery that protects the bishop and the saint, but excludes Francis's angry father, and by extension the material world he represents, who remains outside its walls. Physically restrained by his companions, only his outstretched arm reaches across the divide towards his errant son.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
This sparkling little picture is unusual for a Jan Steen painting. We are outside an inn -- The White Swan, to judge by its sign -- rather than in its dark interior, Steen's more usual setting. People are enjoying the evening sun, perhaps as much as the entertainment.

The sun makes long shadows, but touches of white here and there -- shirts and collars, and a dot of a cap on the woman behind the fence -- bring the more sombre colours of the buildings and other garments to life. The leaves of the slender birch trees shimmer and the rump of the bay horse gleams. The inn seems to be a well-run establishment: the building is in good order, the customers are well behaved and the flagons or jugs visible are made of expensive Rhenish pottery.

The energetic pose of the man bowling suggests that he's serious about his game and that, given a moment or two, the skittles will be scattered everywhere. His companions keep a close watch, as does the little boy with the crutch. Steen has captured their moods and characters with the minimum of facial detail, their poses and gestures enough to tell us about them. The man with his hat straight on his head leans forward, his arms behind him, perhaps a self-appointed referee. The man beside him, hand tucked in his shirt and hat jauntily on the side of his head, has a far more casual attitude -- the flagon in his hand may be a clue as to why. Perhaps all is not quite as orderly as it seems. On the patchy grass beside the skittle party, a man sat next to the woman drinking from a long slender glass makes his plans for the evening clear with the hand sliding up under her cheerful, red skirt.

Painting in the wet-in-wet technique allowed Steen to work at speed and gave his images a spontaneity and liveliness that marks them out. Perhaps the fact that he owned and kept an inn brought him close to the people and incidents he painted, making them more immediate and true to life.

Style: Baroque