wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This and A Saint with a Fortress and Banner are both panels from an altarpiece. We do not know the church for which they were painted. Originally they would probably have flanked a central image of the Virgin and Child in a type of multi-panelled altarpiece known as a polyptych. By the time this picture was painted it was more usual in Venice to include all the holy figures together in one unified composition, known in Italian as a sacra conversazione (sacred conversation). Unlike a polyptych, a sacra conversazione suggests a psychological connection between the figures. The patron's choice of the more traditional polyptych may relate to the location or community for which the altarpiece was made.

A Youthful Saint reading has previously been identified as Saint John the Evangelist, who is frequently depicted as a young fair-haired man dressed in green and red reading the Gospel of John. However, this identification is not certain. He appears to be standing high on a parapet as the horizon is below the level of his waist, and he is set against a great expanse of sky. The low horizon suggests that the panel may originally have been displayed high up. In the landscape of grassy hills and woodland, a small tower peeps through the trees and a weary traveller with  a staff rests on his pack beside the road.

Girolamo da Santa Croce trained with the Venetian painter Gentile Bellini, and his style is derived from the late works of Giovanni Bellini, who he may have assisted around 1507, when he was working at the Doge's Palace in Venice. The earliest work certainly by Girolamo is derived from Bellini's San Zaccaria Altarpiece and was painted in 1516. Here, the contemplative mood of the painting, the grassy landscape beneath a large sky streaked with clouds, the treatment of the drapery, and rich colour palette are all reminiscent of Bellini’s late style.

Style: High Renaissance
The Virgin Mary, holding a laughing Christ Child, stands in front of a folded green and gold drapery (a cloth of honour of the type hung behind medieval royalty). Christ holds an apple, a reference to the fruit with which Eve tempted Adam in the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, and brought about the Fall of Man. The Incarnation, and Christ's subsequent suffering and death on the Cross, was believed to bring about the humankind's redemption, and so Christ became the new Adam and the Virgin the new Eve.

Devotion to Mary was an important part of a great flowering of private religious activity in the fifteenth century: as a human mother she was seen as more approachable than Christ or God the Father. Small devotional panels like this were used for private prayer and meditation.

This painting's condition makes it difficult to judge accurately its relationship to Dirk Bouts. The drawing is good and the pattern of the cloth of gold is found in other paintings by Bouts, and the technique of the draperies is very similar to that used in The Virgin and Child. Both were probably made in Bouts's workshop around the same time.

Although Netherlandish paintings were much admired all over Europe in the fifteenth century, by the eighteenth century they were out of fashion. Interest in early Netherlandish paintings -- the so-called 'primitives' -- was revived in the nineteenth century, especially in Germany. This painting belonged to Prince Ludwig Kraft Ernst of Oettingen-Wallerstein, and later passed to his cousin Albert, husband and consort of Queen Victoria. After Prince Albert's death, Queen Victoria gave 25 of his paintings to the National Gallery.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
This painting of a grey-haired man apparently lost in thought is not intended to be a portrait of a real person, but is an example of a tronie. This genre, popular at the time, depicted personality types.

It is signed Rembrandt halfway up on the right-hand side; scientific analysis suggests that it almost certainly dates from the seventeenth century and confirms that the signature is integral to the painting, not faked later. Indeed, it's made with the same paint mixture used to render the dark tones in the man’s cloak, so there's a high probability that both cloak and signature were made by the same hand.

But based on judgments of style and painting technique all Rembrandt experts agree that the work is not by the artist himself -- so the signature must be a forgery. It must, however, have been made by someone, perhaps from his workshop, who was familiar with Rembrandt’s working practices.

Style: Baroque
Saint John the Baptist stands next to Saint John the Evangelist on a tilted floor. It is John the Baptist, identified by his camel hair shirt and cross staff, who makes direct eye contact with the viewer. In his left hand he clutches a scroll with the inscription: ECCE AGN[US DEI QUI TOLLIS] PE[CCATA MUNDI, MISERERE NOBIS] ('Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world') (John 1:29). This is what the saint said to Christ following Christ's baptism in the River Jordan.

Much like his left foot here, which extends beyond the ledge of the platform, John the Baptist stood on the threshold between the Old Testament and the New Testament. As the last prophet of the Old Testament, he delivered God’s divine message to the people of Israel. He is joined by John the Evangelist, one of the Twelve Apostles. The quill he uses to write in the red book he holds refers to his role as the four authors of the Gospels -- in fact, the inscription on John the Baptist's scroll is taken from John 1: 29. The black eagle at the Evangelist's feet is his traditional symbol.

This panel is a fragment of the same altarpiece to which Saint Mark and Saint Augustine belongs. The orientation of its figures suggests that they were originally on the left-hand side of the central image, with Saints Mark and Augustine on the right. The lost or unidentified central panel is likely to have shown the Virgin Mary and Christ Child. If that's the case, the tilted floor probably continued seamlessly across all the panels, but it's also possible that a sculpture formed the centre of this ensemble. It has also been suggested that The Virgin and Child appeared at the centre of this altarpiece.

While nothing is known about the original layout and context of these panels, the inclusion of Saint Augustine on one of them suggests that they were originally in an Augustinian foundation. Some scholars have suggested that they came from the Florentine church of S. Spirito, but there is little evidence in support of this claim. Another possibility is that they came from the Tuscan hilltop town of Montepulciano, where they were recorded in a private collection in the early nineteenth century. Montepulciano is home to an important Augustinian church -- but Zanobi Machiavelli is not documented in that city. In the past it has been said that these two panels formed part of the same altarpiece as three other panels by Machiavelli, but their shapes and sizes do not match.

Style: Early Renaissance
Although capricci views like this one show scenes that are essentially imaginary, Guardi often used details of real buildings in his. The staircase here is based on the one in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace in Venice, though Guardi has left out some statues. He also reduced the size of the square, creating a more intimate space.

A rich golden light coming from a summer sky falls on the buildings and people. A sunlit courtyard lies beyond the dark shadows of the arcade, and the illuminated figures crossing it catch our attention. More figures, suggested by dabs of paint, lead us up the stairs; high above, two people drape a blue cloth over the pale stone. Guardi has shown only part of the right-hand arch, placed at an unusual angle to the dark row of arches on the right and those across the square, so that we feel that the scene continues beyond the picture. The buildings are made up of continuous sweeps of golden brown tones, their architectural details merely hinted at in dark, fractured and broken lines. Here, Guardi has used an archway to guide us into the scene, a device also seen in his An Architectural Caprice and Canaletto's Venice: Piazza San Marco.

Guardi's paintings of the 1770s were popular with tourists as they evoked the atmosphere of Venice. These 'picture postcard' views -- Guardi's capricci scenes are often no bigger than an A4 piece of paper -- were affordable souvenirs and could be easily transported by travellers during their Grand Tour of Europe. This is one of 192 paintings given to the National Gallery in 1910 as part of the Salting Bequest. It included other imaginary scenes, like An Architectural Caprice with a Palladian Style Building, as well as views of Venice and its surroundings, such as Venice: Piazza San Marco and View of the Venetian Lagoon with the Tower of Malghera.

Style: Neoclassical
A woman sits or stands, the top half of her body swung to our left, as she turns towards someone or something outside of the picture. She is dressed like a maja, a woman typically from the lower classes whose clothes became fashionable among royalty and aristocracy in Spain during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She wears an elaborate shawl and headdress of cascading black lace, known as a mantilla, held back off her face by a comb decorated with a large rosette of ribbons (a caramba).

The sitter is Doña Isabel de Porcel, according to an inscription on the back of the original canvas. Goya exhibited a portrait of her at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid in 1805. A year later he painted a portrait of her husband Antonio, the Secretary of State for Spain's American Colonies, whom she had married in 1802. The two portraits seem to have remained together until around 1887, but it's unlikely that they were intended as a pair: they were painted in consecutive years, differ in dimensions, and Antonio's was on panel (his portrait ended up in the Jockey Club in Buenos Aires where it was destroyed by fire in 1953).

When an X-ray image was made of this painting during conservation treatment in 1980, another portrait was found underneath. Doña Isabel was painted directly over the other portrait, seemingly of a man wearing a waistcoat and striped jacket, without hiding it with a new priming layer. You can just make out the dark curve of his eyebrow on Doña Isabel's chin, and the stripes of his jacket are visible through her right sleeve. There is no varnish layer -- normally the last stage in completing a painting -- between the two portraits, suggesting it probably didn't leave the artist's studio before being painted over. There's no dirt layer between the two portraits either, so Doña Isabel must have been painted very soon after the man underneath, whose fashionable costume points to a date in the mid- to late 1790s. Artists often reused canvases, especially during periods of political upheaval when canvases were hard to come by and patrons fell in and out of favour, and Goya was no exception.

Despite being painted with great flair -- look, in particular, at the distinctive zigzag patterns that brilliantly convey the transparency of the lace -- and long considered one of Goya's most dazzling portraits, doubts have recently been cast over whether it really is by Goya.

Style: Romantic
A woman and five children are crammed into a small space. It is hard to tell where they are, or what their relationships to one another are; their individual facial expressions, which all feel unconnected, seem to be the main focus. The strange position of the woman behind a table suggests that the artist found it difficult to fit her into the composition. She could be kneeling or seated on a low stool, but there is no sign of her legs. The perspective is probably wrong and the tablecloth may have been added to hide this error.

The glazed terracotta jug with its metal lid, the bowl and delicate-looking glass are painted with great attention to detail. The boy's rough chair is similar to those in other Le Nain paintings. The room is plain and dark, and the bright colours of the clothes -- olive, red, blue and beige -- stand out against the background. The white tablecloth emphasises dignity, but the empty glass and bowl suggest poverty.

This small painting is on copper, and is signed and dated 1642 in the lower right corner. There were three Le Nain brothers -- Louis, Mathieu and Antoine -- but the signature here is merely of their surname. They are best known for their meticulous depictions of French peasant life. It has been suggested that this work was painted as a pair to The Village Piper (The Detroit Institute of Arts) which is also on copper, of a similar size and painted in the same year.

The artist's decision to use copper for these scenes, which is more expensive than canvas, suggests the paintings were luxury objects. They may have been commissioned to represent the theme of charity towards the poor and could even be portraits of abandoned children being cared for by wealthier benefactors.

Style: Baroque
This striking portrait of a man in a red hat forms a pair with Campin's A Woman -- the sitters were clearly husband and wife. We have no clues to their identity, but their clothes suggest they were relatively prosperous townspeople. The man's red headdress, or chaperon, consists of several parts: a bourrelet (a padded ring), part of which is visible above his forehead; a cornette (the long, scarf-like tail) which has been wound round the bourrelet; and a patte (the shoulder cape), which hangs over his left shoulder, its seam clearly shown.

The face is so lifelike, the level of detail so astonishing and the tiny tonal transitions in skin and fabric so carefully observed that we are almost unaware of how Campin has ordered the man's clothes and features to convey his character. His forehead creases in a frown which narrows his eyes, and the corners of his mouth and eyes curve resolutely downwards. Minute variations in colour suggest reddened skin and wrinkles. His skin sags beneath his jaw and forms crow's feet around his eyes, which have only the smallest of catchlights. He slouches and his head is off centre; he does not dominate the composition as his wife does.

Although both figures are silhouetted against flat black backgrounds, they are lit in different ways. Campin must have intended to show different schemes of lighting and rearranged his studio accordingly at all their sittings. The shadows cast on the man's face stress the falling lines of the pattern Campin created; his hands are not included, perhaps because they would have been at odds with this pattern. His clothes echo the drooping lines of his face, and he seems world-weary, uncertain and disillusioned. His hat has been brought forward so it seems to press down on his head, and its scarves to flatten his bulk -- unlike the hat in Jan van Eyck's assertive self portrait, which flies confidently upwards.

Infrared reflectography has shown that Campin didn't always follow exactly the underdrawing when painting, but subtly  adjusted the compositions to make them more formal and abstract. The contours of the man's face below his left cheekbone and opposite his mouth are drawn to the left of the painted contours. The seam between his collar and his robe was underdrawn as a fairly broad dark line and there are other lines in the collars which may be underdrawing. Areas of hatching, in short, parallel, evenly spaced strokes indicated areas of light and shade.

The artist's interest in facial expression and emotion and the use of pattern to increase emotional effect are comparable with other works thought to be by Campin, and these portraits are therefore attributed to him. The clothes are in the fashion of about 1430 and the dendrochronological evidence suggests a date around or after 1435.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
The Continence of Scipio is one of a series of paintings that show scenes from ancient Roman history. They were made to decorate a room and were originally painted on wooden panel, although they have since been transferred to canvas. Their size and horizontal format suggests they were probably intended to be inserted into wall panelling, as was common practice in Renaissance Venice.

Three other pictures in the series are in the National Gallery's collection: The Attack on Cartagena, The Rape of the Sabines and The Intervention of the Sabine Women. A further two pictures from the series are in a private collection: Coriolanus and Scipio rewarding the Soldiers.

The painting depicts an event that reveals Scipio Africanus’s clemency as a military leader. The episode is described by the Roman author Livy in his account of the Second Punic War, and is also inserted into translations of Plutarch’s Lives. During Scipio Africanus’s campaign against the Carthaginians in Iberia his troops took a beautiful young woman prisoner. In Licinio's painting, the scene is set before the pavilions of Scipio’s camp, which is high above a distant town in a mountainous landscape. The young woman stands behind the seated Scipio in a modest pose based on classical statues of Venus (known in Latin as Venus pudica).

Rather than abusing her, Scipio has summoned the young woman's parents and fiancé, Allucius, who have arrived with a ransom to free her. The parents are in the centre of the panel instructing their servants to unload gold and silver treasures from their camels and present them to Scipio. Allucius approaches Scipio and respectfully asks for his fiancée’s release. Scipio allows the young woman to return to her fiancé, provided that the family become friends of Rome. He then returns the ransom to them as a wedding gift, thereby showing both financial and sexual restraint.

During the Italian Renaissance, Scipio’s noble example was frequently cited and depicted as Italian states were often warring with each other and with neighbouring lands. The episode was also popular for paintings commissioned at the time of a marriage. A similar example of clemency is the generous treatment by Alexander the Great of the family of the defeated Persian king, Darius, as seen in the large painting by Veronese also in the National Gallery's collection.

Style: High Renaissance
A well-dressed woman, hands folded in prayer, kneels in what was once the right wing of a triptych (a painting in three parts). Behind her is Saint Paul. Her husband kneels in the other wing, with Saint Peter behind him. The central panel is missing.

We don't know who the two donors were, but they were clearly wealthy people. The lady wears a black or dark grey dress, lined with whitish fur. Hanging from her golden belt is a long and expensive rosary of 60 red (possibly coral) beads and seven large yellow ones, perhaps meant as gold, and a gold cross.

On the back, visible when the altarpiece was closed, is Saint Nicholas of Myra, painted in grisaille to look like a stone statue in a niche. Although one of the most widely venerated of Christian saints almost nothing is known of the life of this Turkish bishop. His life is a series of fantastic events, often related to his generosity or his abilities as a miracle worker. Here he restores to life three boys, killed by a butcher; they had been chopped up and hidden in a pickling tub.

The paintings on these panels were the work of several artists influenced by Gerard David, probably working in one of the larger Bruges workshops in around 1515.

Style: High Renaissance
The young woman in this portrait is shown half length, hands folded in the conventional way for women sitters at this time. We don’t know who she is, or who painted her. Her dress is demure but fashionable and costly. She wears satin and lace, and pearls round both wrists, round her neck and on the little cap at the back of her head. She holds a fan in slender fingers, a sign of gentility.

The two lions in the diamond at the top left corner of the picture have been suggested as part of the coat of arms of the Barons of Basseghem, near Bruges. The painting is dated 1647, when Bruges was in the Southern Netherlands, yet the style suggests a painter from Amsterdam in the north.

Whoever she is, the artist has shown her with the trace of a smile playing about her mouth and in the softness of her eyes as she looks out at us.

Style: Baroque
This small painting shows the moment that Christ comes down from heaven to receive the soul of his mother. The Virgin Mary lies close to death, surrounded by the grieving apostles. Christ floats above her, ringed by golden light and accompanied by angels; two hold a white cloth in which to carry her soul to heaven. One also has a white lily, a symbol of the Virgin's purity.

Although it shows an event from the biblical era, this is very much a medieval death scene. It takes place in what resembles a wealthy, almost palatial, late-medieval house. The Virgin lies on a large bed with red bedclothes, the floor is tiled and a table to the left holds various domestic items. A lighted lamp hangs from the ceiling; the rope with which to haul it up and down is tied to a hook. Through a mullioned window at the back we see a town square with people chatting and walking about, oblivious to the miraculous events taking place inside.

The Virgin is receiving the last rites from the apostles. Each is an individual figure who shows grief in his own way. Behind the bed, a blond, beardless man -- almost certainly Saint John -- leans over the dying Virgin, weeping. He places a taper -- the long, lighted candle -- into her hands. Attached to it is a small disc with a cross: the Host (the consecrated bread used in the Eucharist) which was offered to the dying. In front of the bed at the far right, a man in red, possibly Saint Paul, holds a rosary and squats on the floor, absorbed in his own grief. A bearded and balding saint, apparently Saint Peter, stands by the bed, with tears on his cheeks. He is dressed as a priest and prepares to scatter holy water over the Virgin by dipping an aspergillum (sprinkler) into the situla (bucket) held by his companion. Another apostle, small glasses perched on his nose, consults a book, prayer beads protruding from a slit in his robe. At the end of the bed, two hold a censer between them, one blowing on it to keep the incense alight. We can see a similar concern for the rituals of dying in The Dormition of the Virgin.

Technical analysis shows us that there was once a large curtained bed instead of the view of the town, the window was in a different place and the floor was wood. This earlier version seems to be based on a preliminary design van der Goes made when planning his famous Death of the Virgin (Groeningemuseum, Bruges). At a late stage, however, our artist painted over the original bed and introduced the apparition of Christ, and the illusion of perspective given by the tiled floor and the window. The painting's appearance has also changed over time. The Virgin's robe was once blue but has darkened. The panel itself has also been cut down around the sides. It once had an arched top; the unpainted edges at the bottom and the four top corners show the original size and shape.

Although we don't know the identity of the artist, his style, especially the varied and detailed faces and his interest in storytelling, suggests he was working on the border between the Low Countries and Germany in the early sixteenth century. The painting may have been made in or near the Duchy of Cleves.

Style: High Renaissance
This imaginary scene reflects an eighteenth-century fascination with ruins. A once glorious but now ruined folly has been positioned on one of the islands in the Venetian lagoon. Two men dig energetically beside the classical arch, a scene repeated in other paintings by Guardi. He has used the crumbling ruins, emphasised by the trailing greenery and warm light, to evoke an emotional response in viewers, reminding us of the inevitable passage of time.

Guardi painted this in the late 1770s, when he was over 60 years old, and it displays all his ability to suggest form with only a few strokes of paint. The two closest figures are placed in a shaft of light, with the arch acting as a framing device that allows the distant architecture to recede.

Style: Neoclassical