wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
The panels of this small triptych are in their original frames, which are carved from the same boards as the panels. The gilding is relatively modern, although it covers traces of an older, perhaps original, gilding.

The central panel shows the Virgin Mary seated on an elaborate throne in a sort of loggia (open-sided gallery or room). On the left wing is an unidentified, possibly Cistercian, saint wearing a red mitre -- he might be a mitred abbot, rather than a bishop; on the right is Saint Louis, who ruled France as Louis IX. Saints James the Great and Anthony of Padua appear on the back of the wings, painted in semi-grisaille -- their draperies are monochrome but their flesh is naturally coloured.

The triptych seems to have been compiled from patterns available in the workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aalst. The Virgin and Christ are a reduced version of a larger Virgin and Child (Kunstmuseum, Basel) and may have been reproduced, perhaps by tracing, from a drawing in the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. The same figures are found, reversed, in a half-length Holy Family, of which many versions survive. The figures of Saints James and Anthony also recur in other paintings attributed to Coecke or his workshop.

Style: High Renaissance
Two saints kneel at the feet of the Virgin, who sits on a marble throne and gazes down at the Christ Child in her lap. We're looking at Saint Francis, founder of the Franciscan Order, on the left and the famous Franciscan preacher Bernardino of Siena on the right. Francis's hands show the stigmata -- the wounds of the Passion  which appeared miraculously on his body -- and he gazes devotedly up at the Virgin. The small figure of the patron kneels at the front. We don't know who he was, but Francis is presenting him to the Virgin and Child.

This arrangement of the Virgin and Child between Saints Francis and Bernardino was very popular in Italy in the later fifteenth century. It first appeared in the work of the Florentine painter Benozzo Gozzoli in the 1450s and was copied by numerous artists, with variations. A similar idea, although more complex, can be seen in Gozzoli's   Virgin and Child Enthroned among Angels and Saints. Caporali seems to have based his composition most directly on an altarpiece by Niccolo da Foligno dated 1457, now in the Pinacoteca Comunale, Deruta.

Caporali didn't just copy the earlier painting, however -- he reworked it, making it tighter and increasing its expressive power. This composition is carefully and geometrically arranged to guide our attention in the right direction. The Virgin and saints form a large solid triangle, with smaller triangles formed by Christ and his mother's open cloak, and by the profile figures of the two saints.

Within this structure, gestures and glances draw our eyes up from bottom to top: we are directed from Saint Francis's hand on the donor to his upturned palm, then to Christ's, and then to the Virgin. Her still, crossed hands -- which are emphasised by both size and colour -- stop the upwards movement. The donor gazes up at Saint Francis who in turn looks up at the Virgin, as do Christ and Saint Bernardino. We are directed back to Christ by her downcast eyes.

Style: Early Renaissance
The sitter for this portrait by the Spanish artist Raimundo de Madrazo has not yet been identified, but her clothes can be dated to the late 1880s or early 1890s. As the clothing is unfinished, this may be a study for a larger portrait.

Born in Rome in 1841 into a family of artists of noble descent, Madrazo initially studied in Madrid. In 1860 he visited Paris, where he settled permanently from 1862. He continued his training there, which included studying with Léon Cogniet. Madrazo was also influenced by the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens, who was by then an extremely successful portraitist, particularly of elegantly dressed society women.

Despite its possible unfinished state this portrait shows Madrazo’s polished technique, which established him as a much sought-after portrait painter both in France and America, where his clients included the Vanderbilt family. His brother-in-law was another important Spanish artist, Mariano Fortuny.

Style: Realist
An unidentified female saint clasps a martyr’s palm and a richly bound book. Her wrinkled skin indicates that she is no longer a young woman. Her hair and neck are covered by white veils and her dress was probably originally pale blue. Her clothing is plain and modest, although she is wrapped in a rich purple and green cloak edged with gold (presumably put on when she reached heaven). She is not dressed as a nun, however, but as a laywoman.

This panel formed part of the upper tier of a large polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece), 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. As many saints depicted on the altarpiece were chosen for their special significance to members of the Roberti family, it has been suggested that she might represent Saint Dorothy, the name saint of Dorothea de Roberti. However, this remains uncertain since Dorothy is typically shown as a maiden holding a basket of flowers.

Contrasting with her restrained appearance, the book she holds has gilded fore-edges, a red binding – presumably dyed leather – and metal bosses and clasps. Bookmarks made of slender threads curl between its pages. A very similar book is held by Saint Bernardino in another panel from this altarpiece, although seen from a different angle. Perhaps the artist kept a book like this in his studio, to use as a model for paintings.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Jacob Ochtervelt has focused our gaze on a brilliantly dressed woman standing at a virginal. Light falls onto her bare left shoulder and on the huge double dome of red satin that forms the back of the skirt and its train. She seems cut off from an intimate exchange between a female singer and a violinist taking place at the left of the scene.

Two dogs on opposite sides of the room are engaged in a game that sets the flirtatious tone for the painting. Interestingly, the dog on the right was completely painted out in the early 1920s, possibly because it was felt that the music was being 'drowned by yapping dogs', as the text in an auction catalogue put it. The map on the background wall is taken from an atlas-sized map of North and South America published in Amsterdam in 1661.

Style: Baroque
Lot, the nephew of Abraham, lived in Sodom until God destroyed the sinful city: 'the Lord rained upon Sodom… brimstone and fire from … out of heaven' (Genesis 19: 24). Forewarned of this, Lot and his daughters fled to a cave in the mountains. His wife was turned to a pillar of salt for looking back at her old home; she is visible in the background on the right. On the left, Sodom and Gomorrah are still burning.

Wanting to preserve the male line of their family, Lot's daughters decided to get their father drunk in order to sleep with him. Here, the two richly dressed daughters are giving their father bowls of wine in the foreground. The 'oriental' or historic dress of the sisters reflects the fashions of about 1520. Their profiles are very distinctive, and both have high, apparently shaved foreheads, which rise in regular curves. Neither has much back to her head. Their noses project from points below their eyes and there is very little space between their chins and their noses.

In these respects they are similar to the women in the Birth of John the Baptist (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam) by the Master of the Altarpiece of Saint John the Baptist. Lot's head is similar to that of Zacharias and other figures in that painting. However, Lot's Daughters make their Father drink Wine lacks the careful underdrawing of the Rotterdam panels from the Baptist series, and may be attributed to a follower or assistant of the Master.

Style: High Renaissance
This painting looks complete but it is in fact one part of a larger image. It was cut in two sometime before 1828 probably so that each section could be sold separately. The lower part entered the collection of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1828.

Here the Virgin Mary is crowned by Christ. Her glorious reception in heaven, after her death, is not described in the Bible but in the thirteenth-century compilation of lives of the saints, the Golden Legend, where she takes her place on a throne by Christ’s side. Such passages would have inspired sumptuous representations such as this. The pose of the Virgin, her arms crossed in a gracious gesture, comes from Giotto’s version of the scene painted for the Baroncelli Chapel in Florence. It recalls images of the Annunciation, when the Virgin humbly received the news that she was chosen by God to be the mother of his son. Its use here may be intended to remind the viewer of the importance of humility and the acceptance of God’s will in Christian life.

This is the only picture by the Florentine painter Bernardo Daddi, who had a large and prolific workshop, in the National Gallery’s collection. It is, however, a good example of his admiration for the highly decorative style of painting in the neighbouring Tuscan city of Siena. The Virgin’s halo is adorned with a wreath of roses, incised into the gold leaf; the edges are imprinted with small rosettes and dots, made with metal tools called punches. Pattern abounds across the picture: the Virgin’s robe is decorated with a now-worn gilded pattern, with red and blue outlines; it is similar to the gold, green and blue fleur-de-lis pattern of the textile hung upon the throne.

The picture in Oxford shows four angels kneeling before the steps of a throne that resembles the one in this picture. Behind them are two figures, identifiable only by their clothing as the panel was cut just beneath their heads. Saint John the Baptist is on the left; the saint on the right has been identified as Saint Stephen. X-ray images of the National Gallery panel show the remains of three haloes, one to the Virgin’s left and two to Christ’s right. They are not visible to the naked eye, as they have been scraped off and painted over, but if you look closely you can see Saint John’s fingers showing through where the paint of the Virgin’s mantle has worn. It is likely that the arrangement of figures was symmetrical and that there was another saint behind John the Baptist. No evidence of that figure remains as the panel was cut down at the left edge.

The original painting, then, showed the coronation with four angels kneeling and playing instruments at the base of the throne, with two pairs of saints standing on either side. The angels and saints are of a much smaller scale than the imposing figures of Christ and the Virgin above. It is unclear whether it was an independent painting, or if the picture was the central panel of a larger altarpiece.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
This painting is a nineteenth-century copy of The Virgin and Child with an Angel by Francesco Francia (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh). It is highly unusual because it is a forgery, made to deceive, and we now know who painted it and the circumstances of its creation.

In 1893, the chemist and industrialist, Ludwig Mond (1839--1909) bought this painting, which was inscribed FRANCIA AURIFEX and dated 1492. He believed it to be the work of the fifteenth-century Bolognese painter and goldsmith (aurifex in Latin), Francesco Francia. He bequeathed it to the National Gallery in 1924 along with 41 other paintings.

The Virgin Mary holds the naked infant Christ, who stands on her knee and raises his hand to us in blessing. An angel beside Mary offers Christ a chalice containing cherries. These may be intended to represent the Eucharist, which is sometimes called the 'fruit' of Christ's Passion. The cherries are to remind us of Christ's sacrifice at the Crucifixion and his salvation of mankind through the wine of Communion. The fantastic golden chalice may give us a sense of Francia's highly prized work as a goldsmith, almost all of which has been lost. The red cloth behind the Virgin has been drawn back to reveal a landscape with a distant mountain and a cliff, and two tiny figures, one on horseback and one on foot.

In 1954, the version of the composition now in Pittsburgh appeared for sale at auction in London, and its authenticity was verified by several influential art experts. The National Gallery commissioned a technical report of the picture in its collection, and four paint samples were examined under a microscope. Although the picture is painted on a fifteenth-century wooden panel, it was discovered that several of the pigments used, such as chrome yellow and Prussian blue, were not available until the eighteenth or nineteenth century, and the age cracks on the paint surface, known as craquelure, were found to be painted imitations. The underdrawing beneath the paint surface was revealed to be in graphite pencil, which was first patented in 1795 and only used widely from the nineteenth century. It became clear that the National Gallery's painting was a deliberate fake.

During the 1840s, the original Francia painting belonged to the family of the Bolognese painter, Pelagio Palagi. The National Gallery fake was made before 1844 by Fausto Muzzi  and Giuseppe Guizzardi, two Bolognese painters who had trained with Palagi in Rome. On 13 April 1844, Guizzardi wrote a note certifying that the original Francia picture was owned by the Palagi, and that a copy had been made by Muzzi and completed by himself. It is possible that the copy was commissioned as a souvenir for the Palagi family when the original Francia painting was sold. If this was the case, there would have been no need to reuse an old panel to make the painting look old. It is more likely that the copy was made to conceal the fact that the painting had been sold from the authorities or other family members.

Style: Realist, High Renaissance
This small portrait was attributed to the French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix when it was presented to the Tate Gallery by the British artist Walter Sickert in 1922. However, this attribution is now rejected on stylistic grounds. The sitter is traditionally identified as the French social reformer Victor Considerant (1808--1893). The broad face, hairstyle and drooping moustache can be seen in other confirmed portraits of him.

Considerant was a utopian socialist and a follower of Charles Fourier (1772--1837). He played an important role in the founding of the Fourierist movement, including establishing a colony in Texas in the mid-1850s based upon Fourier’s ideas, and in the promotion of socialist journalism and writing.  His most important works include the three-volume La Destinée sociale (1834--44) and Principles of Socialism: Manifesto of 19th Century Democracy (1843). He is credited with defining concepts such as the right to work, direct democracy and proportional representation.

Style: Romantic
The identity of the man in this bust-length portrait is not known but it appears to be a true likeness of the sitter with little attempt at flattery. His hair and beard are grey and his forehead lined. The top of his head can be seen through his thinning hair, and the texture of his skin and the hairs of his beard have been meticulously described. He seems to frown but the wrinkles at the corners of his dark brown eyes suggest that he often smiled, and make him appear kindly although careworn.

Leandro Bassano often employed this simple bust-length format and frowning expression in his portraits. The descriptive painting technique seen here, with short strokes of slightly dry impasto in the higher areas of hair, beard and collar, is also typical of his work. The paint surface has been very damaged by abrasion, especially on the face and collar.

When the painting is viewed by infrared photography and infrared reflectography, the remains of a Latin inscription appear at bottom left. The parts that are still legible translate as: 'This man was born to be... a follower of Apollo... Orpheus... pleasing to princes...ready to...' As well as being Greco-Roman god of the sun, Apollo was god of music, poetry and art. Orpheus was a poet and musician in Greek mythology who could charm all living things and even stones with his music. The inscription suggests that the sitter in this portrait may have been a successful poet or musician and that he wrote or performed for royalty.

He appears against a plain grey background wearing a very dark brown tunic with a large, white collar. The lack of ornament on the clothes and background directs all our attention to the sitter's face and perhaps express something of his character. The style of his dress, particularly the large, loose collar, points to a date in the last years of the sixteenth century. That was the time when Leandro Bassano was most in demand as a portrait painter in Venice. The doge of Venice, Marino Grimani, made Leandro a knight in April 1596 after he had painted his portrait, which is now in Dresden.

Style: Baroque, Academic
In an elegant interior adorned with a landscape painting on the wall and a classical bust above the door, a man and a woman are making music together. The lady, clad in a luxurious red satin dress with gold embroidery, is standing with her back to us in front of a harpsichord. She looks down at the keyboard, while the singing man sitting opposite gazes adoringly at his love interest. A servant bringing wine appears in the doorway, but only the dog turning its head has noticed the intruder.

Variants of the figure of the standing woman appear in several other works by Ochtervelt and the dress is identical with that in Two Women and a Man making Music, also in the National Gallery's collection.

The son of a bridge keeper, Ochtervelt grew up in humble circumstances. He specialised in depicting elegant companies in lavish interiors, with which he enjoyed great success.

Style: Baroque
It is night-time, and we are looking into the dimly lit apse of a Catholic church. An elaborate metal baptismal font stands on red marble steps in the foreground; the column next to it is a font crane, which supports the font cover. There are still several visitors in the church and the side chapels are brightly lit, although an acolyte is putting out the candles in the chapel on the right.

An inscription on the tombstone in the foreground reads ‘Here lies entombed Henry Steenwyck’, the name of a Flemish painter who specialised in church interiors. As it bears the numbers ‘632’, presumably the last digits of the date 1632, the grave cannot be that of the painter Hendrick Steenwyck the Younger, who died in 1649. The inscription might have been intended as a signature, but the painting’s quality suggests that this is the work of an imitator.

Style: Baroque
Two boys stand in front of a large monochrome picture displayed on a wooden easel. It depicts a moment from the story of Gideon, as told in the Old Testament (Judges 7: 5–6). God advised Gideon, a military leader, to select his army by asking the men to drink water from a pool. Those who lapped the water with their tongues like dogs were the chosen ones, and would help Gideon secure victory over the Midianites.

The central figure holds a board and a blank sheet of paper, perhaps in anticipation of making a sketch after the work, or to start another. While the snub-nosed child next to him leans over to study the drawing more closely, he turns, frowning slightly, to look at something out of view. This over-the-shoulder look is common in self portraits, due to the required positioning of mirrors and the easel. The boy's fine outfit -- his doublet is embroidered with gold thread and his sleeve is a shiny purple material -- is not what an artist would usually wear while working, but would be in keeping with the promotional nature of a self portrait.

While scholars have mostly agreed the figure seems to be a self portrait, identification of the artist has varied from Tintoretto to Theodore Helmbreker, and has come to rest on the Flemish artist Jacob van Oost the Elder. The second, younger-looking sitter has been identified as either an assistant or the artist’s brother.

The painting’s close-up, cropped composition coupled with the crowded scene displayed on the easel lends a claustrophobic atmosphere to the work. This has been intensified by the fact that the lower edge of the picture was cut down at some point, converting it from portrait format -- appropriate if this is indeed a double portrait -- to the square we see today.

Style: Baroque
Seated in a palatial interior, Queen Mariana of Spain is in mourning -- she wears a white wimple and the black habit of widow's weeds. This portrait -- one of Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo's finest works -- was painted the year after the death of her husband Philip IV, King of Spain. Their son and heir, Charles, was too young to take to the throne, leaving Mariana to rule as regent until 1677.

She sits on a throne-like chair in the Hall of Mirrors of the Alcázar, the royal palace in Madrid, which was destroyed by fire in 1734. Her face is alert and her pose suggests that she is only sitting momentarily, perhaps implying that her position as ruler is temporary. Although represented as a wife and mother, she holds a petition, alluding to her official duties. An inscription on the paper names Mazo as the author of this portrait, identifies his position as court painter and includes the date 1666. A similar device was used by Velázquez in his Philip IV of Spain in Brown and Silver. A small dog -- a symbol of fidelity -- lies at her feet; a detail we also see in Murillo’s Portrait of Don Justino de Neve.

A young Charles appears in the background, accompanied by servants. He is being offered a drink from a red cup on a tray, and beyond him stands the gilded 'toy' carriage he used to move around the royal palace. Charles was a fragile child, and his death in 1700, without an heir, marked the end of Habsburg rule in Spain. Behind them is a bronze statue of Luna, Roman goddess of the moon, by the Flemish sculptor Jacques Jonghelinck, which adorned the palace's Octagonal Room at the time (it is now in the Palacio Real, Madrid). The group in the background recalls Velázquez's famous painting of 1656, Las Meninas (Museo del Prado, Madrid), in which Charles's older sister, the young princess Margarita Theresa, is attended by maids and dwarves, and watched by her parents.

A replica of this portrait, possibly by Mazo himself, is in the El Greco Museum, Toledo. Only two of Mazo's known paintings are signed: this, and his panoramic View of Zaragoza painted in 1647 (Prado, Madrid), which was inspired by Velázquez's Philip IV Hunting Wild Boar (La Tela Real). Mazo was Velázquez's son-in-law and principal assistant, and succeeded him as court painter after Velázquez's death in 1660. Here, we can see his deliberate imitation of Velázquez's loose, sketchy technique, though Mazo seems to lack his master's subtlety.

Style: Baroque
The unknown young man in the portrait looks out gravely but with the hint of a smile about his mouth. His long, wavy hair is parted in the centre and falls either side of his high forehead and pale cheeks, and he has a marked cleft chin.

He wears garments fashionable in 1657, the year the painting was made: a flat lace collar, the two ends of the stock that ties it peeping out below, and multiple buttons down the coat, left undone a little way to allow his silk shirt to protrude. A little more unusually, the seam of the coat sleeve is also open to display the body of his shirt. He has a cloak flung casually over his left arm.

Little is known of the artist, Abraham Raguineau, except that he is likely to have lived in the Dutch town of 's-Hertogenbosch.

Style: Baroque