wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
Zoffany has portrayed Mary Oswald (about 1713--1788) at the age of about 50. Probably born in Kingston, Jamaica, she was the only child of Alexander Ramsay, a Glasgow-born merchant who settled in Jamaica, acquiring plantations there and in the South American colonies. Mary not only succeeded to her father's estates, but also to those of her two uncles. She was very wealthy and much of that wealth was gained through slavery.

In November 1750, Mary Ramsay married Richard Oswald, a Scottish entrepreneur, merchant, shipowner and slave trader. Oswald also negotiated the peace treaty with Benjamin Franklin that concluded the War of American Independence, during which Oswald had operated as an army supplies contractor.

This portrait is one of Zoffany's largest paintings and was probably commissioned to hang in the Oswald's Scottish house designed by the architect Robert Adam, on their estate of Auchincruive, three miles from Ayr. Oswald collected paintings and decorated his Scottish home with them. After his death, Mrs Oswald requested that the pictures displayed at Auchincruive should stay there, and this portrait by Zoffany remained in the house until 1922.

Mrs Oswald was almost certainly painted in Zoffany's Covent Garden studio. Perhaps she was surprised on seeing the finished picture to find she was sitting on a boulder with a large slanting tree trunk beside her. She does not seem at ease in this wild setting. She wears a ribboned cap and lustrous blue taffeta dress with ruches, bows and wide lace sleeve ruffles and a lace 'modesty piece' above her neckline to protect her fashionably pale skin from the sun. She carries a flat straw hat over her arm, the same one that appears in Zoffany's portrait of David Garrick and his Wife by his Temple to Shakespeare at Hampton (Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven). The hat clearly did not belong to Mrs Oswald but came from Zoffany's props box.

Zoffany appears to have detected little zest for life in Mrs Oswald and her pose and setting seem only to emphasise her solitude. There is a tradition that a portrait of Mr Oswald, who died in 1784, at about the time this portrait was painted, 'exists behind a cloud' in the picture. X-ray photographs show what was possibly a large male head sculpted as part of an urn in the top right area, later painted over with foliage. The male head is too large to have formed part of this composition and may be the remains of an earlier abandoned work.

The Scottish national poet, Robert Burns, who was Ayrshire born and bred, wrote that although he had not known Mrs Oswald personally, 'I spent my early years in her neighbourhood, and among her servants and tenants I know that she was detested with the most heart-felt cordiality.' In a very nasty ode to her memory, which was published in the Morning Star on 7 May 1789, he wrote: 'View the weathered beldam's face / Can thy keen inspection trace / Aught of humanity's sweet melting grace?' We must wonder whether Burns ever saw Zoffany's portrait of Mrs Oswald.

Style: Academic, Neoclassical, Georgian
Saskia van Uylenburgh, the daughter of a burgomaster of Leeuwarden in Friesland, was 23 years old and had been married to Rembrandt for a year when he painted her portrait. She is in Arcadian costume (in other words, dressed as a shepherdess, though a very grand little shepherdess).

She has gold embroidery on her wide belt and on the brocade edge to her spring-green over-gown. Her sumptuous dress bells out over her cream satin petticoats and the light, almost transparent sleeves fall at her sides in gauzy folds. The low wide neck pushes up her breasts, edging them with delicate lace. Her long red hair waves down to brush her shoulders, and glowing pearls hang from her ears and peep over the crown of her head. The necklace of tiny wild flowers is echoed around her brow and a sprig of juniper sways over her head.

Her costume is not of the seventeenth century, nor of Roman times: it's a dressing-up version of Renaissance dress, something that Rembrandt liked to use for intimate portraits and the big biblical scenes he aspired to paint, regardless of when they were actually thought to have taken place. They added drama or poetic meaning to the picture.

The painting is sometimes referred to as 'Saskia as Flora', the Roman goddess of spring and fertility, a title much more in keeping with her costume and with the profusion of flowers that she holds, primulas, tulips, roses and tiny pinks among them. In the other hand is her shepherdess's stick, entwined with delicate green leaves. At the time, such classical representations -- the Seasons, Greek or Roman gods and goddesses or more abstract figures such as Justice, Mercy, Envy -- were popular in all the arts. Poets, writers and composers all looked back at the ancient world for inspiration.

But it's possible that there's another dimension to this portrait. Saskia grasps the stick firmly as if for support, rather than just as a decorative prop. The hand clutching the flowers is stiff and tense from the weight and unwieldiness of the bouquet. She appears to lean back slightly, as if easing discomfort, carrying unaccustomed weight. Suspended across her gown just below the waist, a little chain draws attention to her belly. Her expression is difficult to decipher. Her large blue eyes gaze not at us, but a little over to the right to someone standing near -- the artist perhaps. Her oval face with soft cheeks is enlivened by a little half-smile. We can't discount the possibility that when Saskia stood as the model for this painting she was visibly pregnant, and that Rembrandt has portrayed her as such.

During the seven years of their marriage, Saskia had three children who died very young. Only the fourth child, Titus, survived into adulthood. Titus was born in 1641. Saskia died a year later and Titus in 1668, a year before his father. So for Rembrandt, although the promise of abundant life was fulfilled for a while, it didn't endure -- except in his portrait of Saskia as Flora, goddess of spring.

Style: Baroque
A cardinal sits in a red velvet chair decorated with gold braid. One of his hands lies on the arm rest, the other holds his cardinal’s biretta (hat) on his knee. Behind him is a bookcase, the shelves of which are lined with very large leather-bound volumes.

The sitter is identified by the inscription along the spines of the books: ‘Decis Ro (lettering partly obscured by the chair back) / Decis. Rot. Rom Pena t (the final letters obscured by the sitter’s cape) / Decis Rot. Card Cerri'. This is Carlo Cerri (1611--1690), Dean of the supreme ecclesiastical tribunal, or 'Rota'. The Rota is the highest ecclesiastical court set up by the Holy See for judicial trials in the Catholic Church. It is called Rota (‘wheel’ in Latin) because the court originally met in a circular room to hear cases. The pope himself is the supreme ecclesiastical judge.

Cerri was created Cardinal, Bishop of Ferrara and Legate of Urbino on 29 November 1669 by Pope Clement IX. The portrait was probably painted soon after this date, but before 1679, when Clouwet, who made an engraving of the portrait, died. The inscription on the books refers to Cerri's most important work, the Decisiones Rotae (Judgements of the Rota).

Cerri is portrayed three-quarter length, his body turned toward the right but his face looking directly at us. His greying beard and thinning, receding hair suggest that he is in his late 50s. He is brightly lit from the top left, creating a strong shadow to the right of his nose and a bright highlight along its bony length, which the artist has suggested with a long expressive sweep of white. The crimped pleats of Cerri's white rochet (robe) and the lace of his sleeves have been painted rapidly with fluid, unblended brushstrokes, which create a particularly beautiful effect. Cerri’s character and expression have been sensitively captured, suggesting sharp intelligence but with the slightest hint of a smile.

The painting is in superb condition and has never been lined (backed by another canvas). It is almost certainly the picture attributed to 'Maratti' (Carlo Maratta or Maratti) that was recorded in the apartment of Cardinal Girolamo Colonna in Palazzo Colonna, Rome, in an inventory of about 1763. However, Clouwet’s engraving definitively identifies Jakob Voet as the painter of this portrait. Voet was a Flemish portraitist who worked in Rome, Paris and Antwerp.  He painted portraits of a number of cardinals in Rome, and his portrait of Cardinal de Retz is also in the National Gallery’s collection.

Style: Baroque, Academic
Throughout his life Corot painted images of women clothed in particular costume, often folk dress. He delighted both in portraying their individual features and juxtaposing the colours and textures of different fabrics. These pictures cannot be described as portraits, and the sitters are often unknown. In this example, the woman wears a white dress of perhaps muslin or organza. Its decoration of  pink satin ribbons is conveyed with random streaks of pale pink paint. In her left hand she holds a rose. Entwined in her mass of dark hair is a string of what may be pearls. Touches of reds, yellows and greens indicating flowers and leaves are also visible in her hair.

The woman is framed by an oval bordered with dark paint, the upper half outlined in dull yellow paint, perhaps imitating the gold of a frame. Her face is richly modelled in dark shades of brown, and its handling of light and shade has been likened to the work of Rembrandt. Her deep-set eyes, almost lost in shadow, can be compared to those of the woman in Corot's Italian Woman, or Woman with Yellow Sleeve (L'Italienne), yet she does not have the commanding presence which the model in that painting shares with his other depictions of women. Instead the woman here is an enigmatic figure, rather shrunk in on herself, her appearance leading one nineteenth-century French critic, Armand Dagot, to comment on her ‘nightmarish qualities…a fantastic apparition of which the memory pursues and haunts you’.  Her unusual presence and the small scale of the picture, combined with the depiction of the frame, might suggest that in this case Corot was not painting from a real model, but was copying an existing painting or even a photograph.

Style: Barbizon
Born in The Hague, Jacob Maris trained at the city’s Drawing Academy -- as did his two brothers, Matthijs and Willem, who were also artists -- and at the Academy in Antwerp. His interest in specifically Dutch landscape perhaps began on his first visit in 1859 to the artists’ colony at the village of Oosterbeek. After travelling in northern Europe, Jacob moved to Paris in 1865, where he encountered work by Corot and by the Barbizon group of landscape painters, who became the prototype for the Oosterbeek colony (itself sometimes referred to as the Barbizon of the North). He returned to the Netherlands in 1871 where he became a leading figure of the Hague School of painters.

This relatively small, dark painting shows Jacob’s preference for typically Dutch subjects, which include the windmills, still river or canal and overcast sky we see here, although this picture may not necessarily be of an actual place. By the time he painted it, Jacob had moved away from the smooth finish of his earlier work and had developed a looser style using thick, often impasto, paint and broad visible brushstrokes.

Style: Realist
An elegantly dressed young woman is in the act of grooming herself -- we see her cutting her fingernails with a pair of scissors. A maidservant brings a silver ewer and dish for washing hands, while the big basin in the left foreground probably serves to wash her feet and other parts of her body.

The scene takes place in a richly decorated interior. The table on the right is covered with a costly Turkish carpet, on which a mirror, a jewellery box and a string of pearls are placed. A large tapestry hanging on the back wall shows a narrative scene, but it can't be identified with certainty.

The silver ewer and basin appear in a number of boudoir scenes by Ochtervelt that can be dated to the early 1670s. These were probably painted shortly before or after the artist had moved from his native city of Rotterdam to Amsterdam.

Style: Baroque
Four small boats are gently run aground in an inlet on a sandy shore. The tide is out, the sea is calm and a man with a basket wades into the picture. Some fishermen are barefoot, others tend their craft without hurry. Sails hang up to dry in the sun and the Dutch flags on the mast tops droop. In the distance, bigger ships wait for the tide in a misty haze; the horizon is hidden. Puffy clouds drift across the sky, and there is a feeling of summer, heat and timelessness.

Such paintings were very popular in seventeenth-century Holland, a country whose prosperity was linked to the sea. Willem van de Velde the Younger worked in the family studio producing marine paintings with his father Willem the Elder and his brother Adriaen, who was also a landscape painter. It’s thought that this picture was a collaboration between Willem the Younger and studio assistants.

Style: Baroque
The story of the Tower of Babel told in Genesis (11: 1--9) is intended to explain the existence of different languages. After the Great Flood, all of humanity spoke the same language. Noah’s great-grandson, Nimrod, decided to build a tower that would reach to heaven: 'And they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar' (Genesis 11:3--5). When God saw their city and tower, he was angry; he made all the people speak different languages so they could no longer understand each other, and he scattered them around the world.

In Leandro Bassano's painting the giant, richly dressed figure of Nimrod appears in the middle distance instructing his builders. A large square tower is being constructed with men working on wooden scaffolding at either end. A labourer wearing an apron carts bricks in a wheelbarrow, while another man sorts them in a large wooden trough. Water is mixed into mortar with a long stick in the foreground. The mortar is then carried to the site on boards resting on the builders' shoulders, then up a ladder to the bricklayers on the scaffold.

A stonemason chips away at a large granite block with his hammer and chisel. His ceramic jug and half-drunk glass of red wine stand on the ground next to him and a little boy sits behind holding his chisels. Part of the charm of this painting is that it gives us an impression of what a sixteenth-century Italian building site might have looked like.

This subject must have appealed to the Bassano family because of their interest in painting ordinary people and everyday objects. Here Leandro has included a similar jug, spaniel and copper pan to those seen in The Departure of Abraham. The pose of the little boy holding the chisels resembles that of the shepherd boy blowing on the stick in The Adoration of the Shepherds. It was common for the Bassano family to reuse elements or figures in their paintings.

Much of the composition was outlined with a brush and dark paint, which is now visible in the masonry and around the figures on top of the building. It is likely that this brush drawing was copied from an earlier painting or cartoon of the same subject, probably an almost identical painting by Leandro's brother, Francesco Bassano, which is now in the Prague Castle.

The painting carries an inscription, now covered, at the lower left on the shaded side of the block of stone: LEANDER A PONTE B. The rest of the inscription is illegible but it may say 'EQs' (a shortening of ‘knight’ in Latin) in reference to the knighthood given to Leandro in 1596. This inscription is not original, but is probably early and seems to identify the painter correctly, whose confirmed work corresponds stylistically with the painting.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This was probably made when Steen was still in his early twenties and is one of many small paintings that he produced around this time. The theme of peasants drinking and dancing was a common one in Steen's work, as was the central joke of an older man propositioning a younger woman -- see, for example, An Itinerant Musician saluting Two Women in a Kitchen. At least two of the other dancers seem to be turning round in amusement at his efforts.

The viewpoint here is an interesting one. We are slightly set back from the party and watch the merrymakers from the shadows behind a tree. They are oblivious not only to us, but also to the young boy who looks on. Steen may be making a gentle moral point about children learning from the excesses of their parents, or in this case, grandparents. On the trellis above hangs either a vine, or perhaps hops -- either could be the ultimate fuel of the revelry happening below.

Style: Baroque
A shepherd boy leads a flock of sheep along a country track between two dark banks of trees. Other figures sit in the shadows at the side of the lane. The strongly lit country path contrasts with the darkly massed trees, guiding our eye towards a light, hazy, distant hillside. Dughet has also used the figures and animals to lead us through the landscape.

Dughet, brother-in-law of Nicolas Poussin, was one of a number of French painters in seventeenth-century Rome who painted landscape for its own sake, without including a subject drawn from the Bible or classical mythology. The location of this picture has never been identified, but it was thought in the nineteenth century to be somewhere south-east of Rome, near Lake Albano. The artist made sketches in that area and used them in the studio to introduce natural elements into an organised and ideal landscape that was intended to evoke a classical past -- even the figures are dressed in classical tunics.

Painted in around 1670, this work dates from late in Dughet's career. By this time he had perfected the skill of painting trees and foliage in intricate detail. Different tree and plant species are conveyed through varying tones of green and brown, and the trees subtly merge into one another with lighter coloured brushstrokes overlapping darker ones.

Although the picture was admired by many in the nineteenth century for its simple composition it was criticised by the art critic John Ruskin, who thought the canvas was covered 'with about as much intelligence or feeling of art as a house-painter has in marbling a wainscot, or a weaver in repeating an ornamental pattern.'

Style: Baroque, Academic
Philips Wouwerman was an extremely successful painter in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century and was also a favourite of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collectors. His paintings -- landscapes with rural scenes being enacted in them -- are full of movement, small dramas and incident, capturing the imagination of the viewer.

A billowing cloud, its shape and movement echoed in the tree that pierces the sky, sets the busy, almost turbulent, atmosphere. The blacksmith shoeing the white horse raises a strong arm. Around him boys busy themselves with buckets, while the elegant owner of the horse supports its leg. Coming up the hill at a pace is another rider while on the right another -- and more uncomfortable -- procedure is taking place, the horse's head thrown back and its mouth open.

Wouwerman was able to breathe life into the everyday activities and scenes he painted – you can almost sense the noise, the smells and the chill breeze suggested here. There are more of his small but realistic dramas in the National Gallery's collection, like Two Horsemen at a Gipsy Encampment, One having his Fortune told.

Style: Baroque
The Virgin holds the Christ Child in her arms, his body resting against a cushion pressed against her. He wriggles in his mother's embrace, just like an ordinary baby would. Behind her are two saints, Jerome on the right and Paul on the left.

Sant Jerome is depicted as was customary as an elderly man dressed in the red robes of a cardinal, reflecting his status as a 'father' of the Catholic Church, which derived from his translation of the Bible from Greek into Latin. The hat is unusual, however: cardinal's hats usually had wide brims, but this may have been omitted due to a lack of space. Saint Paul, the apostle who preached about Christ, holds a sword, the symbol of his martyrdom -- his execution for his Christian faith.

Both figures are squeezed behind the Virgin, rather than stood next to her. This unusual feature suggests they may have been added to the design at a late stage. This last-minute decision is interesting, as it seems to have been Bartolomeo Vivarini who introduced the type of altarpiece that became known as a sacra conversazione ('holy conversation') into Venetian painting. These showed the Virgin, Christ Child and saints on the same panel, as opposed to within separately framed compartments.

Vivarini was part of a dynasty of Venetian artists which included his brother Antonio and his nephew Alvise, who he may have trained. His paintings, this one included, were inspired by the work of the Paduan artist Mantegna.  Vivarini followed his style by paying attention to detail and the definition of contours and by using rich colours. Mantegna continued to use real gold as highlights on draperies, for example, but the extensive use of gold found here (which replaces the original) is unusual for the period.

The Virgin's full, oval face is pale and smooth, just like the skin of her baby. By contrast, the saints' faces are tanned and lined. The details of the fine wrinkles around their eyes and on their brows suggest their age, but the symmetry of this geometric web of lines and curves is schematic. The way that the lines appear to be carved into their faces resembles Mantegna's depiction of aged saints. Another very close similarity is the density of the crisp folds of the draperies, which also appear as though finely carved from marble: compare, for example, the folds of the Virgin's white mantle with the draperies of the sleeping disciples in Mantegna's Agony in the Garden.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
A merchant ship, probably an Indiaman, comes to anchor. After a long and dangerous journey, perhaps to the Far East or the West Indies, the white sails are being lowered one by one. The flag on the foremast suggests that this is the vessel of the vice admiral of a small fleet.

The crew is busy. Vessels gather on either side of the ship to take its cargo ashore -- the one in front of it is a kaag, a flat-bottomed vessel designed for inshore transportation of goods and people. The blue and white flag hanging from the spar suggests that the home port of the kaag is Texel, a busy island city in North Holland. The white sail glows in the early morning sun and hangs in elegant, sculptural folds. A man silhouetted against it is starting to hoist a small boat to launch it, ready to row to the Indiaman and its cargo.

Away to the right, a fishing boat sails close to a huge armed merchant ship known as a fluyt, which were sometimes used for whaling. The tall pole -- little more than a faint line -- attached to the high stern of this one is likely to be the crane for winching whales on board. The sails on both boats hardly register a breeze, suggesting they are almost becalmed.

More small boats on the left move towards the Indiaman, making slow, stately progress in the light breeze. This was a time when everything important to Holland -- shipping, fishing, trade, agriculture -- was dependent on the weather. Perhaps only painting could continue undisturbed by calm or storm in the multitude of artists’ studios scattered throughout the land. Marine and landscape works like Willem van de Velde's were sketched in drawings made outdoors, but finished paintings were made inside.

One of these studios was run by Willem van de Velde the Elder, with his sons Willem the Younger and Adriaen. Adriaen was primarily a landscape painter but sometimes added figures to Willem the Younger’s pictures, as in The Shore at Scheveningen, also in the National Gallery's collection.

Style: Baroque