wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
Two female saints stand at the ends of this glossary:predellas, one holding pincers, the other with two snakes: Saint Agatha, or possibly Apollonia, and Saint Verdiana. In between them are three scenes from the life of Saint John the Evangelist.

These paintings are the base of a large polyptych painted in the early 1420s by the Florentine artist Giovanni dal Ponte. It once stood on the high altar of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista at Pratovecchio near Florence. Other panels from it are also in the National Gallery.

The saints were chosen because they were special to the nuns at Pratovecchio, who were in the Camaldolese Order, a strict branch of the Benedictines. Saint Verdiana was a local anchorite, a religious recluse who had had herself walled up in a cell for 34 years; the snakes were believed to have lived with her in her cell. She was a role model for Camaldolites, who lived party as hermits. In medieval altarpieces smaller figures of saints often stood for neighbouring houses, and there was a nunnery in Florence called Santa Verdiana.

We are not sure if the saint in the left-hand pilaster is really Apollonia, in spite of the inscription. She might have been intended as Agatha: the tooth she grasps with her pincers is oddly large and could actually be a breast (Apollonia had her teeth pulled out as part of her martyrdom, while Agatha had her breasts cut off). There was a Camaldolite nunnery in Florence dedicated to Saint Agatha, and the abbess of Pratovecchio who probably commissioned the altarpiece was called Agatha.

The three narrative scenes in the middle of the predella are based on the life of Saint John, the patron saint of Pratovecchio, as told in the Golden Legend,  and shown in Florentine art. In the centre the elderly saint is asleep on the island of Patmos; beside him rest a book, a pen and an inkwell. He is experiencing the visions he was to write down as the Book of Revelation. The figures around him are taken from the book: above him is the Son of Man with a sickle in his hand (Revelation 14: 14), while to the right a woman and child are threatened by a dragon (Revelation 12:1--17). Angels hold the four winds, symbolised by lions. In the right panel Saint John is being boiled in oil on the orders of the Emperor Diocletian. In spite of the men with bellows and pipes fanning the flames, and the great heat from which others recoil, he came to no harm and was then exiled to Patmos.

On the left two identical young men with haloes give alms to poor and disabled people. In this story Saint John rebuked two pagan brothers who had destroyed all their wealth in order to show their contempt for worldly things. He recreated it and distributed it to the poor, and the men were converted to Christianity.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Saint George, with the remains of the dragon he has slain beside him, and an unidentified female saint kneel with their hands on their hearts in reverence. A rough Crucifix made from two bound sticks has been propped up inside a broken tree stump. Usually in Italian religious art of this period a tree stump with new growth symbolises Christ’s resurrection; here the Crucifix is an unusual variation with the same meaning.

This painting is a fragment of a larger work, probably of the Virgin and Child with saints. The Virgin and Child would originally have been to the left, with Saint George and the female saint facing towards them. There was probably another pair of saints on the other side of the Virgin and Child. The infant Saint John the Baptist is usually depicted holding a small Crucifix like the one in the tree stump, which suggests that he may originally have been included in the central group of the Virgin and Child. We do not know the locations of the other missing parts of the painting. The picture was originally painted on a wooden panel but the National Gallery's fragment has since been transferred to canvas. The panel was probably damaged, which may explain why this surviving fragment was separated from the rest of the painting and why it is in such poor condition.

This type of single-panel devotional image of the Virgin and Child with saints is known in Italian as a sacra conversazione, meaning 'holy conversation'. Although the holy figures are not usually shown speaking to each other, the term implies a psychological connection between them. This was not so evident in earlier altarpieces in which the saints were represented on separate panels from the Virgin and Child. The original painting would have been wider than it is tall. This landscape format sacra conversazione is a type of devotional image that was developed and became popular in Venice in the first half of the sixteenth century.

A complete work of this type by Palma Vecchio is in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, and the National Gallery picture is clearly in his style, but the damage and heavy repainting it has suffered makes it difficult to say for certain who it is by.

Style: High Renaissance
It's quite hard to follow all that's going on in this small but busy painting. Although it is set in a Renaissance town square, this is the Dormition (literally the 'falling asleep', from the Latin dormire) and Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

In the centre, the body of the Virgin lies on an elaborate bier raised on four pillars and decorated with candles; Christ leans over her. Above, he carries her up to heaven in a giant golden glow. In the foreground are the Twelve Apostles, some leaning on a balustrade, stricken with grief, others pointing and looking up at the miraculous events behind. In front of the bier and with his back to us, a fair-haired apostle -- presumably Saint John, to whom Christ had especially entrusted his mother and who was traditionally depicted as young and with fair hair -- seems to be holding a lit taper in the air.

There is nothing about the death of the Virgin in the Bible and accounts of it in apocryphal texts differ in details. In the medieval Catholic Church it was generally believed that when the Virgin was about to die the apostles were miraculously gathered together. Christ first carried her soul up to heaven and then returned three days later for her body.

The Dormition was often presented as a medieval death scene, as in The Death of the Virgin by Hugo van der Goes and The Dormition of the Virgin. Here, however, the whole scene looks like a theatrical performance and might indeed reflect the kind of religious theatre that was found in fifteenth-century Italy. Angels playing trumpets, viols and other instruments crowd around the Virgin's body; others stand on top of the canopy and on the balcony of the building on the left, or float in the air. More musical putti are crowded into the heavenly sphere around the floating figures; it looks like they are painted on a cloth suspended from the buildings. Angels carrying candles process around the back of the bier and at the very front a man in black seems to be watching the whole show.

The artist, Gerolamo da Vicenza, signed and dated the painting on the balustrade: HIERONIMVS. VINCENTINVS. / PINCSIT. / VENETIIS. 1488. ('Gerolamo da Vicenza painted this (in) Venice, 1488.').

Style: Early Renaissance
The Virgin Mary stands with her infant son, Christ, in the corner of a large but sparsely decorated room. He is balanced on a small table, the only piece of furniture, but is dangerously close to its edge; a closed book further restricts the space available to him. The Virgin uses both hands to support his left leg as he leans forward. His translucent robe hardly provides protection.

The grey colour of the walls evokes a sandstone known as pietra serena, a common building material in Renaissance Florence. Two large windows with moulded frames pierce through the walls, opening onto a mountainous landscape. The view from the left window is dominated by a slender tree, its crown silhouetted against the blue sky. Crenelated walls surround a small seaside town with several towered and fortified buildings placed around a church in its centre. In a busy workshop, like that of the Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli, such landscape backgrounds were frequently painted by specialised assistants.

Another assistant is likely to have taken care of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child. These figures form a pyramidal shape that dominates the picture plane and fills the empty room with life. The vibrant reds and blues of the Virgin's garments, the fine gradations in the flesh tones and golden veils and haloes contrast with the reduced colour palette for the interior and landscape background, focusing attention on the central figures.

Seeds of a pomegranate trickle out of Christ's raised hand, evoking the beads of a rosary. This resemblance may have been intentional, as the painting is likely to have been made for private worship. The existence of several versions of this painting suggests that the outlines of the central figures are based on a cartoon, now lost, that was available to assistants in Botticelli's workshop. Such a working practice would have been necessary in order to meet the high demand for images intended for private devotion. Botticelli was widely acclaimed for his ability to produce such paintings, which frequently decorated Florentine households.

Of all the devotional paintings produced in Botticelli's workshop, one of the most celebrated is the so-called Madonna della Melagrana ('Virgin of the Pomegranate'), now in the Uffizi, Florence. Its name derives from the fruit Christ holds prominently, a traditional symbol of the Passion, as its red juice can be likened to Christ's blood. Numerous fifteenth-century painters chose to include it in religious works, such as Bellini in The Virgin and Child and Lippi in The Virgin and Child with Saint John. Because of its many seeds the pomegranate has also been interpreted as a symbol of fertility, and occasionally accompanies depictions of Venus in mythological paintings (for example, An Allegory).

Style: Early Renaissance
Boudin was born and grew up on the Normandy coast, and although he spent winters in Paris he returned to the area each year, retaining a lasting affection for its bracing climate and expansive seascapes. He is best remembered today for his pictures of crowds of affluent holidaymakers on the beaches of Trouville and Deauville, painted in the 1860s. In this much later freely painted oil sketch, however, the mood is bleak rather than festive.  It was traditionally called A Squall from the West, and the breezes that cause the flags to flutter and crinolines to lift in the earlier beach scenes have given way to more menacing gusts of wind. Dark clouds have gathered in the sky and a torrential downpour has started, threatening the boats sketched in on the horizon. The beach is almost deserted. In place of the fashionably dressed figures of the 1860s a few strokes of black and red paint suggest children playing in the sand watched over by a man in grey.

In 1890, towards the end of his career, Boudin wrote: ‘I am a loner, a daydreamer who has been content to remain in his part of the world and look at the sky,’ acknowledging his lifelong obsession with fleeting weather effects. Thirty years before he made this oil sketch he had created a series of informal pastel studies of skies over the Le Havre estuary, which were praised by the poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire  as ‘meteorological beauties’. Baudelaire remarked that just by looking at them it would have been possible to guess the time of day, season and wind direction.  This sketch, which Boudin perhaps painted on the spot, also seems to record a specific moment. The date – 7 April – is noted in the lower right-hand corner.

In 1865 and 1866  Boudin had spent some time painting on the Channel coast alongside his friend Gustave Courbet, who also admired Boudin’s observation of changing skies. Courbet  produced a number of canvases of deserted beaches, including  Beach Scene, which probably shows the shore of Lac Leman in Switzerland beneath heavy clouds, perhaps echoing Boudin’s seascapes.

Style: Impressionist
This may be one of Garofalo's earliest surviving works, probably produced during his stay in Ferrara in 1499 or shortly afterwards. This type of composition was generally used for altarpieces but this picture is very small, only 46 x 35 cm. It shows the infant Christ seated on the Virgin Mary's knee, holding a tiny goldfinch on a string. The bird is traditionally associated with Christ's Passion because of the legend that when one flew down and took a thorn from Christ's crown of thorns its own head was marked red with Christ's blood.

The Virgin and Child are seated on an elaborate architectural throne. It is decorated with carvings resembling the compositions found on coins and ancient engraved gems. Curtains have been tied back either side to reveal a landscape divided from the foreground by a wall. The sticks at the bottom of the picture are probably meant to represent a small dam in a stream and also appear in Garofalo's The Agony in the Garden. The painting has probably been trimmed, especially at the lower edge.

The saints flanking the Virgin's throne wear the black and white habits of the Dominican Order. They are the founder of the order, Saint Dominic and the most revered of the female Dominican saints, the mystic Catherine of Siena. Both saints carry lilies and a book. Saint Dominic places his hand on his chest, drawing attention to the star on his breast. Saint Catherine's hands bear the stigmata -- marks corresponding to the wounds that Christ suffered during the Crucifixion. They are also visible on her feet and in her side where the blood has stained her habit. She holds a cross with a tiny figure of Christ attached to it. A label has been impaled on the top of the Crucifix rather than attached to the front, as is more usual.

The monkey sitting on the step of the throne is an unusual feature and may represent man's base nature disciplined by the Christian faith. It appears to be derived  from one in an engraving by the German artist Albrecht Dürer, in which the infant Christ also holds a bird on a string (British Museum, London). Dürer's engraving probably dates from about 1498 and was probably an exciting novelty circulating at the time. Alternatively, Garofalo's monkey could have been copied from an actual monkey in the Duke of Ferrara's menagerie. A similar monkey appears in another early work by Garofalo, The Adoration of the Kings (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). Mazzolino also included monkeys in his religious paintings, which suggests they may have been popular in Ferrara.

The only other miniature Virgin and Child like this in the National Gallery, The Virgin and Child with Saints by a follower of Pietro Perugino, features the same Dominican saints. The format may have been particular to that Order.

Style: Early Renaissance, High Renaissance
A young man kneels on the floor of a prison cell. He is wearing a rich cloak, the gold threads of which catch the light, and a cape with three rows of black-tipped ermine tails. He has just been freed from the wooden stocks and heavy chains with manacles that are on the ground. The distinctive red horned cap of a Venetian doge lies next to him. Christ empties a blue and white porcelain cup over the young man's bowed head. Two angels stand behind Christ; both are holding towels and one also carries a ceramic jug. Another angel carrying keys appears in the darkened arch to the right.

It was once thought that this painting showed Christ anointing a doge of Venice in prison. In fact, the young man is not a doge, but a duke of Alexandria in 300 AD. The Venetians believed their doge's ceremonial robes to be very ancient, so would not have found it hard to imagine them worn by a duke so long ago.

Neanias, the young son of Theodosia, ruler of Antioch, was made Duke of Alexandria in Egypt by the Emperor Diocletian and instructed to suppress the Christian community there. Neanias was instead converted to Christianity by a vision and urged his mother to join him in his new faith. However, his mother betrayed him to the Emperor. After Neanias was tortured and imprisoned, Christ appeared to him in his cell, accompanied by angels. He baptised Neanias and gave him the name John. He became a martyr after being tortured and beheaded.

The painting now appears very dark because vestiges of a deteriorated dark varnish remain below the present, very yellow varnish. Christ's blue cloak has probably also darkened and the red lake pigment in his robe may have faded.

The painting was recorded in 1648 in the collection of Gradenica Gradenico, a nun in the convent of S. Daniele in Venice.  It was said to show 'Saint John, Duke of Alexandria, baptised by our Saviour when he was in prison with two angels with towels in their hands.' The relics of Saint John Martyr were moved from Constantinople to S. Daniele in Venice in 1214, which explains why Gradenica Gradenico would have owned such a painting. The picture dates from about 1565 so it was probably painted for another nun in S. Daniele, perhaps one from the same family as Gradenica, and then passed down to her.

Style: High Renaissance
Jacob sits next to a stream, holding his shepherd's staff, surrounded by his flock. Resting beneath a tree, he looks up towards heaven as if seeking guidance or strength. According to the story in the Old Testament, Jacob agreed to tend Laban’s flock for seven years so that he could marry his younger daughter Rachel. Laban tricked Jacob and gave him his eldest daughter Leah instead, forcing Jacob to work for another seven years in order to marry Rachel.

Instead of paying him wages, Laban promised Jacob he could keep any speckled lambs that were born from his flock. As told in Genesis 30: 37--38, Jacob peeled the bark off wooden branches and placed them in the stream (two are floating lower left). Any sheep that drank from this water would conceive speckled lambs, which Jacob was later able to claim as his own. A copy after this painting in the Cerralbo Museum, Madrid, reveals that our painting was substantially cut down on the left-hand side: the canvas was originally more rectangular in format and included a speckled sheep in the left foreground. In fact, it was not until the Cerralbo painting was found that the subject of our painting was identified -- it had previously been thought to represent Christ as the Good Shepherd or Moses with the flock of Jethro on Mount Horeb.

Ribera signed our painting in the lower right corner, stating his Spanish nationality, his training at the Academy in Rome and the date 1638. It was not until the signature was uncovered during cleaning in the 1970s that Ribera's authorship was confirmed -- prior to that the painting had been ascribed to Murillo and had also been classified as being painted 'in the style of Ribera'.

By 1638, when our picture was painted, Ribera had been living in Naples for over 20 years and was at the peak of his career -- he had just completed an altarpiece for the Certosa di San Martino (1637) showing the Lamentation; a subject which he had already treated earlier in his career in The Lamentation over the Dead Christ. The Old Testament story of Jacob was evidently popular, for Ribera treated different episodes in Jacob's life in the 1630s: these include an earlier version of Jacob with the Flock of Laban (1632, Escorial Palace), which is painted in a darker tonality overall and shows Jacob kneeling in a more rocky terrain; Isaac Blessing Jacob (1637, Prado, Madrid); and The Dream of Jacob (1639, Prado, Madrid).

Our painting is characteristic of Ribera's mature style. Short delicate brushstrokes brilliantly describe details such as Jacob’s eyelashes and the sheep's woolly coats, contrasting with the smooth handling of the folds in Jacob's heavy garment and the broadly painted sky. Despite the light on the horizon, the foreground is quite dark, evoking Ribera’s interest in chiaroscuro ultimately derived from his predecessor Caravaggio.

Style: Caravaggist
These saints come from a pala (an altarpiece with a single, unified surface) which was chopped into pieces in the eighteenth century. It was later reassembled by the National Gallery -- look closely and you can see the lines where the pieces are stuck together. The altarpiece shows the Trinity with saints, and once sat on the high altar of the church of the Holy Trinity in Pistoia.

This fragment shows Saint James, at the back with his pilgrim's staff, and Saint Mamas, an early Christian martyr, holding a feather-like martyr's palm. Two lions nudge at the back of his legs; according to his legend, Mamas was thrown to the lions.

A confraternity of priests dedicated to the Trinity commissioned the altarpiece in September 1455, and the surviving minutes of their meetings tell us a lot about the decisions that went into making it and the progress of its production. The process was set in motion on 10 September by Jacopo Bellucci, head priest, and the confraternity quickly decided the work should show the Trinity with two saints on each side. Three saints were chosen -- Zeno, Jerome and James, patron of Pistoia and patron saint of Jacopo Bellucci -- but the fourth was more difficult. Eventually Per ser Landi, the treasurer who was in charge of the commission, suggested Mamas, to whom he was personally devoted.

The confraternity were closely involved in the developing design of the altarpiece. Landi made trips to Florence to get the contract signed and fetch drawings, some of which survive. A sketch of Saints Zeno and Mamas in the Uffizi, Florence, is thought to be a preliminary design by Pesellino to show the  priests his proposal for the new work, though there are differences between this and the final version: Mamas's gesture in the drawing is used for Zeno in the painting, for example. Landi carried on making regular trips to Florence up to Pesellino's death in July 1457, presumably to oversee the progress of the painting -- but perhaps also because he liked the city. By October that year he was in disgrace, for financial mismanagement and for visiting Florence too often.

The altarpiece was described as half-finished when Pesellino died, and work was halted for a year before a new artist was found. It was eventually given to Fra Filippo Lippi to finish off, and was finally delivered to the priests in 1460, five years after it was commissioned.

Like many artists, Pesellino borrowed ideas from other artists and reused figures in different contexts. The pose of Saint Mamas may be derived from Donatello's statue of David, made for the Medici in the 1430s, and the organisation of the paired figures is very similar to that in a small panel of The Virgin and Child with Six Saints (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) attributed to Pesellino.

Style: Early Renaissance, Gothic