wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
Mary Magdalene, clothed only in her hair, has risen from the dead on Judgement Day and is being carried to heaven by angels. Mary from Magdala on the shores of Lake Galilee was a Jewish follower of Christ, who witnessed his crucifixion, burial and resurrection. During the Middle Ages she was confused with the unnamed 'sinful woman' who anoints Jesus's feet in the Gospel of Luke (7: 36--50), resulting in the legend that she was a repentant prostitute.

This is one of the four lunette (half moon-shaped) frescoes of the life of Mary Magdalene from the Massimi chapel in the church of SS. Trinità de' Monti, Rome, at the top of the famous Spanish Steps. The chapel was originally commissioned by a wealthy Roman courtesan, reputedly called Lucrezia Scanatoria, whose carved tomb was once housed there, which may explain its dedication to Saint Mary Magdalene.

The lunettes were situated at the tops of the walls beneath the arched vault of the ceiling.  The Four Evangelists in the vault, the lunettes, and other ornaments in the chapel were painted by Giulio Romano, assisted by his collaborator Gianfrancesco Penni. Both artists had trained with Raphael and his influence can be seen in their works of this period. Giulio Romano also painted the altarpiece for the chapel, now in the Prado, Madrid, which shows Mary Magdalene recognising Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane after his resurrection – a scene known as Noli Me Tangere ('do not touch me'). The lunettes must have been completed before Giulio Romano's departure for Mantua in 1524, probably in about 1521.

At some time after this, the courtesan's tomb was removed and in 1537 the chapel passed to the Massimo family. Angelo Massimi (1491--1550), a magistrate, commissioned Gianfrancesco Penni's brother-in-law, Perino del Vaga (1500--1547), to complete the decoration of the chapel with scenes from the life of Christ. Perino’s fresco, The Resurrection of Lazarus, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Following his death, Massimi was buried at Trinità dei Monti and the subject of resurrection would have been particularly appropriate for this funerary chapel.

Two drawings by Giulio Romano -- Martha bringing Mary Magdalene to Christ (Devonshire collection, Chatsworth House) and The Feast in the House of Simon (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York) -- are thought to relate to two of the other narratives in the lunettes.

In 1837 the vault of the chapel collapsed and the surviving frescoes were sold. The British Museum and the National Museum at Budapest also have fragments of the chapel’s decorations, and others are in private collections.

Style: High Renaissance, Mannerist
In this small painting, the Virgin Mary is seated on a grey stone bench surrounded by a wooden frame. She wears a red mantle and uses both hands to gently restrain the naked Christ Child as he leaps forward with his arms outstretched.

Inserted into the moulding of the arch are the gilded letters of a Latin inscription which cast complicated shadows on the concave surface behind them. The inscription paraphrases Genesis 3: 15, which describes how, after tempting Adam and Eve, the serpent was told by God that Eve's descendant -- Christ -- would once day crush its head. In the painting, Christ looks up at the word 'serpentis'. Running and holding out his arms in a pose suggestive of the Crucifixion, he is hastening to save humanity.

Once thought to be by a follower or even a late copy after Jean Gossart, in the 1990s we realised that this small painting is the original of a famous image by the artist, of which several versions survive. In the sixteenth century, the composition was known to be by Gossart: it was described as 'that distinguished panel by John of Maubeuge' in a 1589 engraving.

The picture was once covered in discoloured and degraded varnish, and was heavily overpainted but when it was cleaned its exceptional quality became apparent. The inscription is so beautifully executed it seems unlikely to be the work of a copyist. The oak of the panel has been dated to before 1492 by dendrochronology, and the techniques and materials are similar to those in other paintings by Gossart. The delicacy of handling in such details as Christ's head and the fingernails of his right hand shows extraordinary skill. The richness of colour, achieved with a very restricted number of pigments, is also astonishing. The letters of the inscription and their shadows are a triumph of the imaginative reconstruction of the fall of light and shadow over convex metal and wood. Moreover, the 1589 engraving was certainly based on this painting as the other versions differ in various details. Although unsigned, this was clearly Gossart's original. His signature and date probably appeared on the original frame.

The underdrawing shows the artist working out areas of the composition on the panel itself, confirming that it is not a copy. Infrared reflectography reveals free and sketchy underdrawing, the positions of the fingers roughly indicated with a few marks and flourishes of a dry drawing material. Only the architecture was drawn with any precision, using a straight edge and compasses.

The first owner was possibly Pierre Damant, a trusted member of Margaret of Austria's household. He may have obtained the picture from Gossart himself, as the artist worked for Margaret in the 1520s.

Style: High Renaissance
Antonio Visentini engraved 38 paintings by Canaletto in his celebrated Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus, published in 1742 -- this popular view was one of them. The collection of prints increased the artist's fame and spread his work across Europe. The composition was widely reproduced in Canaletto's studio, including by his precociously talented nephew, Bernardo Bellotto (whose  version of this scene is in our collection).

Incidental details bring the scene to life. A fisherman is moored up to the right and gondoliers cross the Grand Canal. Along the quay people stroll past the pinkish facade of the church of Santa Croce (demolished in 1810) and head towards the domed church of San Simeone Piccolo, which can be seen up close in the pendant to this work.

The inscription 'original del Canaletto' was uncovered on the back of this picture, but the painting lacks his refinement -- it has clearly been painted in his style.

Style: Baroque, Rococo
During the 1870s when he was living at Argenteuil on the outskirts of Paris, Monet continued his habit of making trips to the northern French coast, often visiting Le Havre, where he had grown up.

The views he painted of Le Havre in the 1860s had focused on the area of Saint-Adresse, showing the shoreline as a place frequented by fishermen and holidaymakers. But in 1873 and 1874 he turned his attention to the modern commercial port that was the main French point of entry for cargo and passengers travelling between France, northern Europe and the Americas. One of the views he painted there was Impression, Sunrise (Musée Marmottan, Paris), whose title would give rise to the term 'Impressionism'.

For The Museum at Le Havre, Monet positioned himself on the wall on the inner harbour facing the Grand Quai, as he did for Impression, Sunrise, but facing the opposite direction, towards the city’s museum of fine arts and public library. This impressive building had been erected in 1845, but no longer exists today as it was destroyed during the Second World War. The new civic museum had not been a total success; Monet’s friend Armand Gautier complained in 1858 that ‘the town is so commercial and the museum so neglected that exhibitions are rare’.

However, those who ventured inside would have been able to see paintings by many of Monet’s contemporaries as well as old master paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture. There were also displays of work by local photographers which would have been familiar to Monet. Indeed, some contemporary photographs of the museum are taken from exactly the same viewpoint as this painting, and show the building with rows of sails in front of it. The museum had a further personal significance for Monet as the curator, Jacques-Francois Ochard, was a local artist who had given him drawing lessons.

Four sketches for the picture in a sketchbook now in the Musée Marmottan show that when Monet was considering the composition he did not greatly change the vantage point, but did experiment with different ways of configuring the sails that almost obscure the building in the final painting. He also chose not to show the ground on which he was standing, so that we have the impression of looking at the quayside as though we are on the water.

Despite the fact that it is larger than many of Monet’s pictures from the 1870s, the painting has the sketchy quality of his smaller canvases. Broken brushwork in the foreground conveys the gentle movement of rippling water and the fragmented reflections of boats. Swiftly filled in areas of colour represent oversize sails, which form abstract shapes, their sharp angles set against the arched windows of the museum and the chaotic jumble of buildings to the left.  A muted palette, consisting mostly of greyish blues and browns, relieved by touches of warmer orange, conjures up the atmosphere of a northern port under an overcast sky.

This picture might have been expected to appeal to a wealthy patron from Le Havre, but it was bought by the Italian artist Giuseppe de Nittis, who exhibited alongside Monet in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1876.

Style: Impressionist
This panel once formed part of the uppermost tier of a large altarpiece. The figure has been mistaken for the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, because of the Latin inscription on the scroll he carries: Behold the Virgin shall conceive. These words, taken from the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 7: 14), are seen as a prophecy of the Virgin Mary conceiving Christ.

The panel which appeared opposite this one shows the Virgin Mary, so the inscription might seem fitting. But close examination with a microscope reveals that there is another inscription -- the original -- underneath. The figure also wears a camel-hair tunic underneath his red robes, identifying him as Saint John the Baptist; this is what the saint wore during his time preaching in the desert (Matthew 3: 4, Mark 1: 6). Saint John is usually shown with a scroll bearing a Latin inscription of words he used about Christ while preaching: 'Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world' (John 1: 29). It's possible that this is what the scroll here said originally.

This panel was originally placed on the right-hand side of an image of the 'Apocalyptic Christ'; the Virgin appeared on the left. The theme of the whole altarpiece was divine judgement at the apocalypse, as described in the Book of Revelation (the biblical text that describes the end of the world). John the Baptist and Mary might be paired here because they are both traditionally thought to intervene on behalf of humanity at the Last Judgement.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Tocqué was one of the most sought-after Parisian portraitists in the late eighteenth century, especially for male sitters,  and his work was compared by his contemporaries to that of Anthony Van Dyck.

We do not know the identity of the jovial-looking man in this half-length portrait. He rests one hand on the back of a chair and the other on his hip as he turns to observe us with a smile. He wears a particularly beautiful gold brocade waistcoat beneath his blue-grey velvet jacket, the button holes of which are stitched in gold. The elaborate waistcoat is a visual sign of the sitter’s social status and has been left mainly unbuttoned to show off his magnificent lace jabot. He may not have actually owned the waistcoat, however, as it also appears in Tocqué’s Portrait of Jean-Baptiste-Joachim Colbert, marquis de Croissy, of 1749 (now in the The Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame, Indiana) and his Portrait of Charles-David Godefroy, seigneur de Senneville (sold Sotheby’s, New York, 30 January 1998).  Like the sitters in those portraits, the gentleman here may have been a wealthy aristocrat, or he could equally well have been a financier. His luxurious painting -- larger than the standard head and shoulders of Croissy and Senneville --  must have been more expensive as it includes the sitter’s hands and a column at the right and a curtain at the left. Tocqué has emphasised the refinement of the fabrics with typically subtle brushstrokes, rendering the reflections of light on the lace, waistcoat and curtain braid.

Tocqué wrote that it is the manner of bearing which gives an air of nobility rather than the richness of the costume. In his bearing, our sitter displays an aristocratically relaxed attitude, which recalls Van Dyck as much as Rigaud. Tocqué captures his psychology as well as his appearance. It was the artist’s belief that the hands also played an important part in the rendering of the character and social status of a sitter. Rolling up the cuffs, he explained, uncovers the wrists, whose delicacy plays a part in the sitter’s elegance. He admitted that, because of the scarcity of beautiful hands, it was worth an artist building up a repertoire of fine examples, or even copying old master paintings (especially Van Dyck). Consequently it is not possible to tell if the hands in our portrait are really those of the man portrayed.

The portrait is signed and dated 1747, which was a key year in Tocqué’s private life: on 7 February 1747 he married the eldest daughter of his master Jean-Marc Nattier. The two artists formed a partnership that allowed them to fulfil portrait commissions for couples. During 1747 they were mainly occupied with painting portraits of the Dauphin Louis, the Dauphine Marie-Thérèse and three of the daughters of Louis XV.

Style: Baroque, Rococo
This back view of a standing male nude is an académie, which is a study, usually a chalk drawing or an oil painting, made from a live male model in the studio. It is one of two académies in the National Gallery’s collection (the other one is also a back view of a male nude).

Such life studies formed part of the classical training of (male) artists from the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, particularly in France. This example is almost certainly French and probably dates from the early nineteenth century. It is falsely signed: david 1805. Although not by David, it may be by a student in his studio, but it has not been possible to confirm this.

Models typically held 'action' poses, in part to display the musculature beneath the skin. A slightly raised foot was frequently a feature of these poses because, as here, it helped reveal the muscles of the lower leg. This model's props -- a shield, a spear and a helmet -- are ones that were often used in these studies.

Style: Neoclassical
This is one of several pictures, variously dated between 1757-69, acquired from the descendants of the Journu family, which lived in and around Bordeaux and for whom Perronneau worked extensively. 

A later inscription on the back of the portrait identifies the sitter as “M.me Legrix née d’Hegar.” It is one of a small group of 18th-century pastels in the collection.

Style: Rococo, Neoclassical
A young woman, dressed in a dazzling yellow skirt and red bodice, is shown semi-reclining in a dark landscape setting, of which only some rocks and plants in the foreground are visible. Her wings and the trumpets she holds identify her as the allegorical figure of Fame. Normally Fame is shown with a single trumpet or two trumpets of different lengths, intended to symbolise honourable fame and infamy, but here she holds a golden trumpet in one hand and a wooden instrument – a shawm (a forerunner of the oboe) – in the other.

The painting is a relatively late work by the Genoese painter Strozzi, who spent the last few years of his life in Venice. It was there that he was nicknamed ‘il prete Genovese’ (‘the Genoese priest’) because he belonged to the Capuchin Order (though he was granted permission to leave the monastery of San Barnaba in Genoa in 1610 to care for his ailing mother and unmarried sister, and subsequently swapped his monk's habit for that of a priest). The bright colourful palette and virtuoso brushwork evident on Fame’s skirt and white shirt are typical of Strozzi’s technique. It was precisely these characteristics which led to the work later being wrongly attributed to the eighteenth-century Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

No other paintings by Strozzi of this subject are known. We don’t know for whom this picture was painted but the slightly low viewpoint and elongated horizontal format of the canvas suggest that it may originally have been intended as an overdoor. The picture probably belonged to Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga (1652--1708), the last Duke of Mantua, and was later in the important collection amassed by Girolamo Manfrin (1742--1801) in Venice. The painting is recorded in the Manfrin collection in the nineteenth century, along with a number of other works now in the National Gallery, including a portrait of Marco Barbarigo by a follower of Jan van Eyck;  Saint Jerome in His Study by Vincenzo Catena;  The Virgin and Child with a Supplicant by Andrea Previtali;  The Departure of Ceyx by Vittore Carpaccio; and Giovanni Battista Moroni's  The Vestal Virgin Tuccia.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This picture shows the view across Moulin Huet Bay on Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. Renoir seems to have recreated the viewpoint fairly accurately: the rocks in the distance have been identified as 'Les Tas de Pois d'Amont' while that on the right is probably 'La Surtaut' (or Cradle Rock). Renoir visited the island for six weeks in September and October 1883, and this is one of a group of paintings he produced during his stay. Renoir wrote with enthusiasm about the 'charming beach' where 'one bathes among the rocks, which serve as cabins [changing rooms] since there is nothing else; nothing prettier than this blending of women and men crowded on these rocks…. Consequently I have a source of real motifs, graceful, which I will be able to use.'

All the paintings he made on Guernsey depicted beach and seascapes and often bathers from different viewpoints around the same bay, which is near to the island’s capital, St Peter Port. The views of the sea allowed him to observe and try to capture the reflections on the surface  of the water, a theme which had long fascinated him. This was a period when Renoir was starting to break away from some of the tenets and techniques of the Impressionist approach to landscape painting, which involved working mostly in the open air in order to capture the light effects as immediately as possible. He was now returning to a more traditional discipline: making oil sketches on site and making a finished painting in the studio. As he wrote to his agent, 'I hope to return soon, around 8 or 9 October with some canvases and documents to make some paintings in Paris.' The 'documents' he is referring to seem to be the studies or sketches he made on the beaches and rocks of Moulin Huet Bay.

This painting, measuring 29.2 by 54 cm, is clearly one of those sketches, and the spontaneity with which it was made is palpable. The way that Renoir has cropped the top of the rock in the foreground suggests that he planned out the composition only very roughly in advance. The four (or possibly six) figures are rendered in the most rudimentary way, with only a handful of brushstrokes, and the foam on the waves in the foreground is indicated with quick dabs and simple, wavy lines of paint. The picture also seems to have been made in one session: close examination shows that the figures were added while the paint layers of the sea were still wet.

Despite the shift in his approach to making paintings, Renoir’s primary concern still seems to centre on the way that sunlight reflects differently from the sea and the rocks, and he has used short, urgent brushstrokes of multiple bright colours to capture what he saw. The rocks, shorn of their hard sharp edges, seem to float and blur into the blues, whites and green of the sea and the strange pinky hues of the sky.

Style: Impressionist
In 1681, Marco Gallo was made a cardinal by Pope Innocent X, having served as Bishop of Rimini in northern Italy from 1659. He died two years later, in 1683. In this portrait he wears a vivid red cardinal's biretta on his head and a silk mozzetta (short cape) with a neat line of buttons.

Even though Gallo must have been around 60 years old in this portrait he appears remarkably youthful. His gaze is direct and his expression stern. Gaulli, also known as Baciccio, captured his greying hair and wispy beard, as well as a slight sense of jowliness, but this is a sympathetic portrait of a sensitive, contemplative man. His face is radiant in the bright light, the flesh tones beautifully modelled. Warm colouring gives him a rosy complexion. Gaulli has imitated the shimmering silk robe through his subtle use of light pinks to deep reds and with carefully applied brushstrokes that create a beautiful iridescence and volume.

The identity of the sitter and the attribution to Gaulli is inscribed on Blondeau's engraving made after the painting and published in Rome in 1751. A native of Genoa, Gaulli spent most of his career in Rome during the latter part of the seventeenth century. Like his mentor, the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Gaulli preferred his sitters to chat and move about while being studied. Gaulli's work is influenced by Bernini's sculptural approach: in the lower part of this painting, the drapery seems to emulate a sculpted bust in the rigid form of the sitter's silhouette and the stiff, angular folds of the fabric.

Gaulli painted many illustrious sitters, including seven popes and a large number of cardinals, but few of his works are known today. This is certainly among the most accomplished of his known portraits and is one of very few works in a British collection.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This elegant woman with a jewelled crown and a martyr's palm is Saint Catherine of Alexandria, one of the most popular saints of the medieval period. This panel formed part of the upper tier of a large polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece). It was painted between about 1456 and 1461 by Giorgio Schiavone for the funerary chapel of the wealthy Roberti family in the church of San Nicolò in Padua.

According to the various versions of her life, Saint Catherine was a scholarly Christian princess who lived in Alexandria under Roman rule. When she asked the Roman emperor to stop persecuting Christians, he sent his best philosophers to debate with her and try to persuade her to revert to paganism. They failed; many even converted to Christianity on the strength of Catherine's arguments. In consequence -- or possibly in anger when she refused his marriage proposal -- the emperor had her tortured on a spiked wheel. Here she rests her left hand on its edge, just visible in the corner of the painting.

The strange object in Catherine's right hand is a girdle book. Girdle books had bindings with long leather tails, allowing them to be attached to their user's belt, though in this picture the tail is draped over Catherine's hand.

Although she was believed to have lived in third-century Egypt, Catherine conforms to fifteenth-century Italian ideals of female beauty. Her long blonde hair falls over her shoulders and her tight sleeves are edged with gold and slashed to show puffs of her linen underdress. She is the visual counterpart to Saint Sebastian, another early Christian saint shown in an approximation of contemporary clothing, who would have appeared on the opposite side of the altarpiece.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance