wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
An abundant display of fruit, vegetables, flowers and game birds is arranged across two levels, bridged by the partridge hanging from the barrel of a gun. Van Os has depicted all the different surface textures with exceptional skill, while the multilevel arrangement creates a dynamic flow within the composition.

At the very bottom of the picture, a bronze relief shows two putti eating grapes. On this rests a marble slab, which serves as a support for the dense arrangement, packed with grapes, peaches, pomegranates, a lemon, flowers and leaves. There's also a large pumpkin and two peppers, a detail typical of Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os. He is known to have used decorative vegetables and many different types of flowers, some of which were rarely or never depicted by other flower painters.

An ancient Greek marble stela (memorial tablet) stands behind the piles of food. Lined up on its top are apricots, an orange and a dead snipe, while to the left a bunch of pink camellias, purple lilacs and other flowers push forward from the monochrome background. They create movement and provide a colourful contrast to the beige carved bas-relief that decorates the tablet and takes up a big part of the composition on the right. It shows two followers of Bacchus, the ancient Greco-Roman god of wine and festivity; one is human, the other is a satyr.

The allusion to the world of the ancient gods is typical of the period: there was a huge interest in antiquity at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Some of the antique objects that van Os used in his paintings have been identified, but it's likely that he invented other examples and reused them. The unidentified bronze relief, which looks more like an Italian Renaissance work, reappears in several of the artist’s paintings, showing different scenes with putti engaged in a variety of activities. A similar still-life composition (now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) belonged to a series of paintings representing the four seasons, and is thought to be an allegory of autumn. The same may be true of the National Gallery’s work: the dead birds, the fruit, the vegetables and the Bacchic rites are all closely related to autumn and harvest.

Van Os, a native of Haarlem, came from a large family of painters. He was trained by his father, the successful still-life and marine painter Jan van Os (whose work is also represented in the National Gallery's collection: Fruit and Flowers in a Terracotta Vase and Fruit, Flowers and a Fish). Susanne de la Croix, his mother, was a portrait painter; his brother Pieter Gerardus and his sister Margaretha were also painters, the latter specialising in flowers and hunting still-life pictures too. Van Os first travelled to Paris in 1812. After several stays he made the French capital his home in 1826, when he started working for the famous Sèvres porcelain factory. At the same time, his magnificent oil paintings were sought after by collectors and fetched high prices during his lifetime.

Style: Neoclassical
Carpaccio specialised in narrative scenes, often illustrating official events and ceremonies of the Venetian Republic.  Here he tells a story from the Metamorphoses, a poem by the Roman writer Ovid which dramatically recounts legends of transformations. It is that of Alcyone and her husband Ceyx, which is continued in another panel made as its pair (now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art).

A rowing boat waits to take Ceyx to the large ship in the distance. He was headed to the oracle at the sanctuary of the god Apollo at Claros, intending to ask about the death of his brother. An oracle was a divinely inspired priest or priestess who would offer advice and answer questions. A tree divides the world that Ceyx is leaving, inhabited by elegantly dressed figures and graceful architecture, from his destiny, the wooden boat isolated in the sea.

Alcyone and Ceyx are shown in the middle of a lengthy goodbye: Alcyone, who had a premonition of a violent storm at sea, begs her husband not to go. But determined and unwary of the threat, he places his hand on her face to reassure her. Her prediction came true: the Philadelphia panel shows Ceyx's drowned body and Alcyone, appalled at the sight of it, launching herself into the sea. Their tragic end provoked a god to spare them both, transforming them into birds which appear to the left of the Philadelphia panel. Alcyone's father was Aeolus, the god of the winds, and after her transformation he calmed the winds for seven days to allow her to lay her eggs -- the origin of the saying 'Halcyon days'.

We do not know who Carpaccio made the pictures for, nor their original destination, but each was once owned by a renowned nineteenth-century scholar -- ours by Henry Layard, the archaeologist and National Gallery trustee, and the other by the writer, painter and critic John Ruskin. Our painting was once in the Manfrin Collection, a highly esteemed private collection in Venice that was sold during the second part of the nineteenth century.

Style: High Renaissance
A young man pours an amphora of red wine onto the goat's head on the altar; a young woman carries an upside-down torch, while an old woman balances a basket of pears, apples and grapes on her head. These elements probably carried a now obscure meaning understood by the erudite audience for which the picture was made. For many years the subject of this painting by Garofalo was believed to be a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods for the gifts of the fruit-bearing earth. Actually, it represents an ancient funeral.

The painting is based on an illustration that appears in a famous and quite strange antiquarian romance by Francesco Colonna called the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published in Venice in 1499. In the part of the book relating to this illustration, Colonna describes the cemetery of those who died for love. All the figures in the painting correspond to those in the woodcut illustration and described in Colonna's text, although none are copied exactly.

There are few Renaissance paintings that follow a text as closely as this one does. However, it does not follow the woodcut illustration exactly. In the illustration, the altar carries the inscription in Latin: hail Valeria, most beloved of all, farewell. Here, only the date 1526 is inscribed in Roman numerals on the base. Also, in Colonna's text the figures are all of carved marble; here, they are living figures who twist and turn in front of a distant landscape.

Garofalo's painting was probably made for a specific setting as it is lit from the right -- usually his smaller easel paintings were lit from the left. We do not know whether it was Garofalo's erudite patron, possibly Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, who suggested basing this painting on the Hypnerotomachia or whether Garofalo already knew of the book himself. It is not clear how familiar even an educated public would have been with it.

The female nude with the upside-down torch is closely related to a marble relief carving of Dido (Hester Diamond Collection, New York) by Giovanni Maria Mosca, one of a series depicting heroines from antiquity. Small reliefs of this type based on antique sculptures were made for the court in Ferrara where Garofalo worked, and it is possible he knew of the Dido and used it as a model for his painting.

Works with subjects based on ancient art and mythology were particularly fashionable among the educated patrons of the north Italian courts at this time. Alfonso I d'Este commissioned several for the Camerino d'Alabastro (Alabaster Room) in his ducal palace in Ferrara, including Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, now in the National Gallery. Garofalo's earliest surviving independent mythological painting is Minerva and Neptune (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), dated 1512, which was probably commissioned by Alfonso I d'Este. There are several other mythological paintings by Garofalo which also date from the 1520s.

Style: High Renaissance
An unknown man gazes past us into the distance. There is nothing to identify him beyond the scroll in his hand, which tells us his age: 38. His clothing is sombre but does suggest that he was a man of means. His fine white shirt has a decorated collar and he wears a grey doublet with a damask-like pattern under a robe.

The man's costume and the style of the painting suggest it was created in around 1520. The painting isn't signed but it resembles a group of portrait drawings made by Lucas van Leyden, two of which are dated 1521. The drawings are thought to have been influenced by the work of Albrecht Dürer, whom van Leyden met in Antwerp that year. But this painting is less close to Dürer's work, so it was not necessarily made after the two met.

The sitter was once identified as van Leyden himself, but seems more likely to have been an ancestor of a later owner, Claes Adriansz. van Leeuwen, possibly his maternal grandfather, the lawyer Franz van Leeuwen. It might have been painted shortly before his death in the winter of 1519--20.

In sixteenth-century portraits across Europe, sitters often hold objects which give some clue as to their identity or profession, as in Moroni's The Tailor ('Il Tagliapanni'), or their character and concerns, as in van Scorel's A Man with Pansies and a Skull. Here we have nothing to go on but the face itself. The man's intent gaze, firm jaw and determined mouth give an impression of a formidable character. The simplicity of the composition and his dress perhaps tells us more about who he was not than who he was. There is no conspicuous display of wealth and status, none of the trappings of scholarship, neither arms nor armour; he was presumably not an aristocrat, soldier, scholar or cleric, but a prosperous professional. This intensity and edginess is typical of van Leyden and can also be found in other Netherlandish portraits.

This sitter is shown in three-quarter profile strongly lit from the left, a typical pose for Netherlandish portraits. The light on his face and hands contrasts strongly with his dark clothing and the deep shadow down his right cheek and jaw, in a way that recalls Jan van Eyck's Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?) of almost 100 years earlier. Space seems compressed: the man's shoulders fill the width of the painting and his hands seem to be cut by the frame (although the panel may have been cut down). The way his shadow falls on the green background suggests that it is just behind him. This is a painting meant to be seen close up: details such as the strands of hair curling from under the hat, the fine line of his mouth and the tiny lights in his eyes all demand careful attention.

The green background has red underpainting, a peculiarity found in other portraits by van Leyden. We are not sure why he did this; perhaps the red slightly muted the bright copper green pigment.

Style: High Renaissance
The unusual horn-shaped cap and sumptuous silk robes identify this man as a doge, the elected ruler of Venice. We can't be sure who he is, but he has been identified in the past as Doge Niccolò Marcello, who was in power briefly from 1473 to 1474 (this was clearly the view of whoever inscribed the back of the picture in the eighteenth century). A medal (Bode Museum, Berlin) inscribed with Marcello's name shows a man with the same bulbous nose and forward-leaning posture as this portrait's sitter; some have used this to identify him.

Gentile Bellini was a member of the leading family of painters in Venice; the National Gallery also owns works by his brother  Giovanni. In 1474 he was commissioned to paint the frieze of portraits of the doges in the sala del consiglio, the council room in the Doge's Palace (the residence of the doge and the place where state business was conducted).

This portrait might be a copy of the one Gentile made of Doge Marcello for that frieze, which was destroyed by fire in 1577. The image must have been well-known as Titian made a version of it in the 1540s (now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome). As was traditional for portraits -- and especially portraits of rulers -- the sitter is shown in profile view, then seen as the most characteristic and striking way to record a person's features. It was also formal: the sitter did not have to engage with the viewer, maintaining a psychological distance suitable to high-ranking officials.

Here, the doge is placed behind a ledge which further removes him, physically this time, from the viewer. The fabric on the ledge, like his silk robes, is woven with what was known as the pomegranate design. Hugely popular in Venice, this design was originally derived from eastern Mediterranean textiles but later produced and exported by Venetian merchants. An expensive luxury item, its use here is a sign of the doge's wealth, and indicates that he presided over a vibrant and wealthy mercantile city state.

Style: Early Renaissance
An old man, alone and slightly lost, sits in a train carriage amid the paraphernalia of travel, including a furled umbrella behind his right shoulder and a hat box at his feet. The effects of an interminable journey, where boredom is tempered by mild anxiety, play across his wrinkled face. His bright eyes search out the viewer’s as if we have just entered the carriage and he sees in our fleeting companionship the promise of relief from tedium. The painting is a character study derived from a specifically modern experience -- a trip by rail.  Mancini’s father, Paolo, was the model for the figure. He often sat for his son in the years around 1900 when the younger Mancini’s mental health was frequently precarious. Paolo had been a tailor in Naples but in old age he kept a benevolent eye on his son and, a bit of an actor, made himself available to pose for picture after picture. Most of them, like this one, were executed amid props in the artist’s Roman studio.

The intensely worked surface of the painting is typical of Mancini's work in these years. Thick layers of paint pile up not necessarily in the most expressive areas of the image like the sitter’s face and hands, which are relatively thinly painted, but rather in subsidiary parts like his clothing. There, the dark pigment is so clotted that it creates a crust on the canvas. The animation such paint application gives to Mancini’s surfaces when seen in real life – as opposed to photographs where light catching on the most encrusted parts often makes the images difficult to read – was appreciated by many contemporary viewers as a sign of Mancini’s modernity and avant-garde indifference to academic norms.

One such enthusiast was Mancini’s London patroness, Mary Hunter.  She once stated that her goal in life was to spend all of her husband Charles Hunter’s considerable fortune. In 1904 she arranged for the painting to hang in the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, for which she herself gave it the title in French under which it appeared in the catalogue: En voyage. Soon afterwards it was acquired by Hugh Lane, and Mancini wrote to his friend John Singer Sargent to say how pleased he was that it belonged to the Dublin-born collector. A few years later, Mancini painted Lane's portrait in Rome, and in 1907 Lane invited the artist to visit London and Dublin to paint portraits. On a Journey came to the National Gallery with Lane’s bequest in 1917. Today, display is shared between the National Gallery and the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.

Style: Post-Impressionist
The uneven arrangement of scenes on this small panel makes it unique in early Italian painting. The chosen scenes are also unusual: the upper scene on the left shows the ascension of Saint John the Evangelist to heaven, an image practically unknown in Western art.

Mourners bow in respect towards Saint John's tomb beneath an altar; the saint -- wearing a bishop’s mitre -- is shown far above them in heaven surrounded by Christ, the Virgin Mary, angels and other saints. This scene is complemented by the coronation of the Virgin which, according to the Golden Legend, took place after her assumption into heaven. A group of angels below crane their necks to watch.

Below this, on the left, Saint Catherine of Alexandria preaches from the pulpit to the Emperor Maxentius, who sits in the architectural throne. Between them a group of pagan philosophers bow down before her, converted to Christianity by her words. The smallest scene at the bottom right shows Saints Francis and John the Baptist; both had spent time in prayer and abstinence in the desert and so they share this arid, mountainous landscape. Saint Francis is shown kneeling to receive the stigmata -- wounds identical to those of Christ after his hands were nailed to the Cross. If you look closely you’ll see that Giovanni, the artist, has used varying shades of red to depict the blood on his hands. John the Baptist is recognisable because of his camel-skin tunic, the simple and uncomfortable clothing he wore in the desert.

The textiles are particularly elaborate: the Virgin's robes are painted with striations (stripes) in gold leaf which follow the lines of the drapery folds and give the impression that she is glowing; others are decorated with gold floral patterns. This emphasis on elegance, gilding and decorative patterns recalls the art of the Eastern Christian (Byzantine) empire -- Giovanni's hometown of Rimini had close trade links with Byzantium on account of its position on the eastern coast of Italy. Each figure has a different facial expression: puzzled, amazed, devout or serious. The bulky figures, such as the chubby children in the top left scene, and the attempt at creating convincingly three-dimensional architectural features show the influence of Giotto, who was working in Rimini at the turn of the fourteenth century when this panel was made.

Another picture by Giovanni (Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome) has the same dimensions, and its six scenes of episodes from the life of Christ are all divided with a decorative red and blue border identical to that in our panel (although the scenes are of equal size, unlike here). It's unlikely the two formed a diptych since there is no evidence of holes for connecting hinges, but it's highly likely they were made as a pair and used for private contemplation.

The prominence of Saint John the Evangelist in our panel might link it to the church of Sant Agostino in Rimini. There was a community of Augustinian hermits there, but the church was dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist before their arrival in the mid-thirteenth century. After that time it was dedicated to both saints.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
This large, atmospheric painting depicts a moment in the Passion: Christ's trial before the Sanhedrin (a Jewish judicial body). Gerrit van Honthorst has used a muted palette with dramatic lighting, eliminating unnecessary details. The composition is symmetrically balanced around the lit candle on the central table: the shimmering flame illuminates the faces of Christ and the man sat facing him, but not much else. The picture hints at why, when he worked in Rome between 1610 and 1620, Honthorst’s nickname was Gherardo della Notte (Gherardo of the night).

The identity of this seated figure has been a subject of debate. When Joachim von Sandrart, Honthorst’s pupil and biographer, saw this painting in the Giustiniani collection in Rome in 1628, he described its subject as Christ before Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. In the inventory of the Giustiniani family made up in 1638, it is recorded as Christ before the priest Caiaphas. Another argument suggests that Christ is before Annas, a different priest before whom Christ was brought for judgement. The title Christ before the High Priest seems to be a good compromise, although most art historians tend to think the Giustiniani inventory was right and Honthorst indeed depicted Christ before Caiaphas.

The time of day rules out an identification as Pilate, who, according to biblical accounts, judged Christ during the day. The priest Caiaphas, however, interrogated Christ at night in the house of his father-in-law, Annas. Furthermore, the account in the Gospel of Matthew mentions two false witnesses who came forward during Caiaphas’ questioning of Christ, providing an identity for the two men depicted behind the candlelit priest here. In their false testimony they accused Christ of saying that he could destroy God’s temple and rebuild it in three days.

Honthorst's arrival in Rome in 1610 more or less coincided with the death of the highly influential Caravaggio. The style developed by the Dutch artist was very much based on that of the Italian master and his followers. Honthorst only had to cross the street from the palace of Marchese Vincenzo Giustianiani, the likely patron of this picture, to see some of Caravaggio’s masterpieces in the Contarelli Chapel of the church of San Luigi dei Francesi. Honthorst lived in Giustiniani’s house in these years and absorbed the style of Caravaggio and other painters, subsequently passing on their manner when he returned to his native Utrecht.

Giustiniani’s collection in Rome included a painting that must have also been on Honthorst’s radar when he painted Christ before the High Priest. Luca Cambiaso painted Christ before Caiaphas lit by two candles that can be dated to after 1570, now in Cambiaso’s native Genoa (Museo dell’Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti). The Utrecht painter must have been motivated to compete with the great Italian masters, resulting in a picture that, in its striking simplicity, is arguably more successful than Cambiaso’s slightly crowded depiction of this decisive moment in the life of Christ.

Style: Caravaggist
A collection of oysters is grouped around a glass of wine. A few closed mussels have been added at the left, with a single open shell depicted at the right. Behind the oysters stands a squat bottle with a cork in its neck. Too short to be a wine bottle, it perhaps contains olive oil.  The surface on which the shells, bottle and glass are set is indeterminate, and merges into the sombre background.

This group of objects reflects the influence of still lifes by the eighteenth-century artist Chardin. There was a revival of interest in Chardin's work in the nineteenth century, and the still lifes became very important to  Rousseau: in 1861 he painted a tribute to the master, Chardin and his Models (Musée d’Orsay, Paris).

The surroundings are painted thinly and sketchily in contrast to the more detailed handling of the objects themselves, all of which reflect light. The reflections in the glass of wine echo the glistening oysters. A knife rests on the glass, delicate touches of white paint highlighting the silver band around the dark handle and the sliver of light caught by the blade that disappears into the gloom. The subtle blue and white highlights of the iridescent mussel shell add a welcome contrast to the overall low-key, earthy tonality.This is considered a late work, and may be the painting entitled A Still Life with Oysters which was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1876.

Style: Realist