wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
The boy regarding us stands in a relaxed confident manner with one hand on his hip and the other holding the hilt of his sword. He is in the corner of a room with a tiled floor, before a curtain of green velvet with wide vertical gold bands, the hem of which is edged with braid with a thick fringe of green and gold stripes. The vertical glossy gold stripes effectively frame the boy’s elegant contrappostal pose (with his weight mainly on one foot).

The costume suggests a date in the mid-1540s and is plainly that of a wealthy family; the full-length format of the portrait also suggests an aristocratic sitter. The boy here has been identified as Orazio Farnese (1532--1553), the youngest child of Pier Luigi Farnese and a grandson of Pope Paul III. His brothers were Cardinals Alessandro and Ranuccio Farnese and Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma. However, the fleur-de-lis emblem of the Farnese family is not included in the portrait as might be expected.  At the age of nine in 1541, Orazio was sent to the court of King Francis I of France to promote a Farnese-Valois alliance, and the portrait was commissioned by his family to mark his reception at court. The costume is similar to that in Titian's Portrait of Ranuccio Farnese aged 12 (National Gallery of Art, Washington) painted in 1541 or 1542 when Ranuccio was sent by his grandfather to Venice to become prior of a property belonging to the Knights of Malta. In 1547, Orazio was betrothed to Diana, the daughter of King Henry II of France, and the marriage was celebrated in Paris in 1553. Orazio was tragically killed in a siege near Artois only five months later, aged 21.

This portrait was once thought to be by the Florentine Mannerist painters Pontormo, Bronzino or Francesco Salviati (1510--1563); it is now attributed to Jacopino del Conte (1510–1598). It was the first of several portraits that Jacopino painted of members of the Farnese family.

Although full-length portraits were common in Venice and its states, where pictures were normally painted on canvas, they were rare in Florence where painting on wooden panels persisted longer. This is particularly unusual in being a full-length portrait painted on wood.

The decoration of the costume and the textures of the various fabrics have been recorded in exquisite detail. Tufts of fur emerge from the lining of the black cloak embroidered with gold; the raw-edged slashed silk of the jacket has double lines of self-coloured stitching and a glossy surface sheen; there is delicate red cross-stitch embroidery on the gathered cuffs of the linen chemise. Little red tape bows with gold tips tie the boy’s breeches to his doublet and his codpiece to his belt in an age before the elastic and zips of today’s children’s clothes. Indeed, this boy is not dressed as a child at all, but as a miniature nobleman, even carrying his own sword.

Style: High Renaissance
We do not know this young woman's identity. She wears an elaborate black velvet gown, the bodice of which is decorated with embroidery in white and gold thread and rows of vertical slashes through which the white fabric of her chemise can be seen. She stands before a green silk curtain and a table covered in a red velvet cloth with gold braid at the corner. Her eyes do not seem to focus and she appears to be gesturing to something outside the picture. This painting may have once hung beside a portrait of the lady’s husband. The bare strip at the very top of the painting would originally have been covered by the frame.

This work was formerly thought to be by Bronzino or his pupil Alessandro Allori, but neither attribution seems likely. The costume can be dated to the late 1550s or early 1560s and suggests that the sitter is probably a noblewoman.

Style: High Renaissance
This dramatic scene of divine punishment is described in the Old Testament. The Philistines are stricken with plague in their city of Ashdod because they have stolen the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites and placed it in their pagan temple. You can see the Ark on the far left -- it is a golden casket decorated with winged figures, positioned between the pillars of the temple.

The tightly grouped figures look around in horror at their dead and dying companions. One man leans over the grey-green corpses of his wife and child and covers his nose to avoid the stench. Rats scurry towards the bodies. To the left lies the broken statue of the Philistines' deity, Dagon. Pieces of a stone column litter the floor in the foreground to further convey their downfall.

When the National Gallery acquired the picture it was thought to be by the seventeenth-century French master Nicolas Poussin. Apart from a few architectural details it almost exactly matches a painting by him in the Louvre, Paris. However, the Gallery's picture is now believed to be a copy by the Italian artist Angelo Caroselli. His work as a copyist was highly rated by Poussin himself, and the fact that this painting passed as a work by Poussin for many years is a testament to Caroselli's skill.

The original work was painted for the Sicilian nobleman Fabrizio Valguarnera in 1631 and a few months later he commissioned the copy we see here. It is likely that Caroselli painted it before Poussin finished the original. The outlines of some of the figures are marked in lead white, suggesting that Caroselli traced Poussin's composition. He may have drawn the outlines on fine material placed over the painting, then coated the back of the material with white lead. The material could then have been placed on his own canvas and the design transferred onto it.

The composition is an early example of Poussin's use of gesture and expression to convey emotion. The vivid blue and red draperies and the orange sky contrast with the golden-brown buildings and skin tones. The muscular physique of the figures and the intricate folds of their drapery reflect Poussin's study of classical statues.

Style: Baroque, Academic
The holy family are resting from their travels in this small pastoral scene. The Virgin Mary sits on a rock, absorbed in nursing the Christ Child; a bundle and pitcher lie on the ground beside her. Saint Joseph leans on the rocky ground beyond, looking up at a small cloud above the Virgin's head, out of which peer three cherubs. His staff rests against the rock and their donkey grazes in the background on the left.

This is The Flight into Egypt. After the birth of Christ at Bethlehem, King Herod ordered all the male first-born children in the area to be executed -- the so-called Massacre of the Innocents. According to the Gospel of Matthew (2: 13--15), an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream warning him that Herod was intent on killing Jesus and that the family should flee to safety in Egypt. Here, however, there is no sign of pursuing soldiers: the scene has the domestic charm of a day out in the countryside.

This is a comparatively early work by Pier Francesco Mola, who specialised in small idyllic landscapes with religious subjects. He made a number of variants of this scene over the course of his career, including an oil on copper in  the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a later rendition in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.

Mola spent most of his life in Rome, aside from two periods during his youth. Although his travels are not well documented, it is known that in 1633--40 and 1641--7 he lived in the north of Italy and visited a number of cities including Bologna and Venice. There, he became familiar with the works of Titian, Guercino and Domenichino. He completed his studies in Bologna in the studio of Francesco Albani, whose influence is evident in this painting, particularly in the figures.

Style: Baroque, Academic
Solario most probably trained as a painter in Venice where he would have been aware of the works of Giovanni Bellini, its most highly regarded painter. His earliest works, like this picture, reflect the influence of Bellini's images of the Virgin and Child that were made for private worship. The holy figures stand before a vast landscape with mountains, the most distant of which are clothed in haze, and the view is partially obscured by a hanging -- all features that are found in Bellini's paintings.

Christ stands on the stone parapet which separates us from the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist, Christ's cousin. Even though he is an infant here, John is shown wearing the camel-skin tunic and holding the reed cross that refer to his time in the desert, when he prophesied about Christ's ministry. Just visible on the curled up scroll on the parapet next to him is the Latin word 'Ecce', the beginning of the phrase John spoke about Christ (John 1: 29 and 36), referring to his future sacrifice: Ecce Agnus Dei ('Behold the Lamb of God'). Solario's signature appears on a fictive piece of paper seemingly attached to the parapet.

Christ's nakedness and his standing pose draw attention to his body, important for Christians as a reminder of his physical suffering; his crossed feet are a reminder of their position on the Cross. The two boys play with a bird, which Christ holds on a string as John presents it with a dragonfly to eat. Birds could symbolise the soul and this depiction might express Christ's command over it.

Style: High Renaissance
A young man kneels on a river bank, struggling to pull a large, wriggling fish out of the water. Behind him an angel points to the fish, and is clearly instructing him what to do with it. This is the story of Tobias and the Angel, as told in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. A faithful Jew living in Nineveh, Tobit was blinded by God to test his patience, but his sight was restored by a miracle. He sent his son Tobias  to collect a debt. The archangel Raphael, whom Tobias thought was a mortal, went with the young man as his guide, and they reached the river Tigris, where Tobias was attacked by a gigantic fish. Raphael ordered him to catch it and remove its gall, heart and liver.

They travelled on together to Ectabane, where Tobias's cousin Sara lived. She was prey to a demon who had killed each of her seven husbands. Raphael asked Tobias to marry Sara in spite of his misgivings, and told him to grill the fish's liver so that the smell would scare off the demon. Raphael, Tobias and Sara then retuned to Nineveh where, again following the angel's advice, Tobias used the fish gall to restore his father's sight.

Although this is a biblical story, the setting and dress of the figures is classical in style. Domenichino was a pupil of Annibale Carracci, whose sweeping 'heroic' panoramas often included identifiable figures, either from classical literature or from the Bible. Like Annibale, Domenichino structured his landscapes carefully, using a winding river to draw the viewer's eye into the distance, while two trees act as stage-like wings. The leaning tree on the left parallels the diagonal of the angel's leaning body, while the gesture of his arm is echoed by the roots and branches of the trees on the river bank behind him.



When this picture was first recorded in the 1679 inventory of the collection of Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna -- a patron of Claude who was celebrated for his interest in landscape painting -- it was paired with another landscape by Domenichino, Moses and the Burning Bush, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The paintings resemble each other in many ways. Both are painted on sheets of copper of a similar size and the handling of the paint is almost identical. Although the paintings are relatively small, they share a sense of spaciousness and the scale of the figures in relation to the landscape is the same in both. Furthermore, Tobias's red tunic is the same shade as Moses's cape. Although the two episodes are seemingly unrelated, both were understood in the Renaissance as forerunners of the virgin birth. The restoration of Tobit's sight prefigured the Annunciation to the Virgin, while the burning bush was interpreted as the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin.

This picture, and its pendant in New York, is an important example of Domenichino's contribution to landscape painting. None of his small landscapes can be dated securely but there are similarities with the Villa Aldobrandini frescoes, Apollo slaying Coronis and in particular  Apollo pursuing Daphne, which were designed in 1616. These landscapes probably date from about the same time.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This small painting beautifully evokes the lushness of the natural world. In classical art and literature, the shepherd or goatherd was a symbol of a lost age of innocence or a celebration of solitude away from worldly cares. Here, he rests against the base of a tree and turns his head towards us. He holds one hand to his mouth as if playing a flute that is just out of view. This image is derived from depictions of the classical hero Orpheus charming the animals with his music. X-ray images reveal that the shepherd may have been wearing knee breeches originally, but Claude evidently changed his mind and clothed him in classical robes in the finished painting. A group of goats lie huddled together in front of him while others graze.

Filippo Baldinucci (1624--1697), an Italian historian who knew Claude, believed the artist painted this work for himself and that 'he used it every day to see the variety of trees and foliage'. The English landscape painter John Constable, who loved Claude's paintings, wrote that this scene 'diffuses a life and breezy freshness into the recesses of trees, which makes it enchanting'. This shady woodland scene, positioned on the edge of a flat landscape, allows a glimpse of a river beyond. The serpentine tree trunks on the left draw our eye through to the glistening stream and blue mountains in the distance.

This scene may resemble the park of the Villa Madama in Rome, home of the Medici family, successful Italian bankers who were Claude's patrons. Painted in around 1636/7, this early painting by Claude shows the extent of his growing talent. The precise delineation of the trees  is based on close observation of nature, and the layering of paint for the foliage creates a subtle contrast between light and shade.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This painting demonstrates Frans Hals's gift for creating lively and animated portraits that suggest distinctive personalities, even though the sitter's identity remains a mystery. Painted life-size in three-quarter-length, she stands against a monochrome beige-brown background and looks directly at us. Bright light falls on her even face and her hands, and she holds a fan made of feathers, set in a gold mount and suspended from a golden chain. The elegant dress and jewellery suggest that the woman, like many of Hals's patrons, may have been the wife of a wealthy citizen of Haarlem.

Hals has paid great attention to the detail of this woman's elegant clothing. She wears wide lace-trimmed cuffs and a large, flat, three-tiered collar decorated with a silver bow. Elaborate collars like this began to replace older types in about 1640, when this picture was probably painted. This is supported by the Portrait of a Man, a Woman and a Boy in a Room by Pieter Codde, dated 1640, in which the woman wears a very similar costume. And there is an even closer similarity to the costume depicted in Portrait of a Woman, also of 1640, by Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck, Hals's Haarlem colleague and possible pupil (Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede). In Verspronck's painting, the lace collar and cuffs as well as the silver bow virtually replicate those worn by Hals's sitter.

Fans began to appear in portraits in the 1630s, but they were in fashion in the Netherlands much earlier. The one depicted here was the most popular type and, like all kinds of fans, was expensive. But Hals didn't just use this fan to convey the sitter's status: it serves to give the picture movement. Rather than just resting her hands on the fan, the woman pulls playfully on the gold chain and holds the mount delicately between her thumb and ring finger -- a position that could change momentarily.

The way the woman's right hand and fan are cropped and the way she seemingly crowds the frame is unusual and might suggest that the painting has been cut at the bottom edge and sides.

Style: Baroque
A friar seems to be kneeling in a doorway or a window frame, hands folded in prayer; his hair is tonsured -- shaved on top -- as a sign of religious devotion. This panel was probably the right wing of a diptych or a  triptych with the object of the friar's prayers, most likely the Virgin and Child, shown in the left panel. The towers of two Bruges churches can be seen behind him.

We don't know the identity of the sitter, but he seems to be an Augustinian (a group of mendicant friars formed in the thirteenth century). Augustinians took religious vows and lived a monastic life, and outside their convents they wore a black cowl over a white tunic, like we see here. This man was probably a member of the Augustinian convent which stood on the corner of the Augustijnenrei and the Hoedenmakerstraat in Bruges, close to where Gerard David lived.

The building on the left is the tower of the Collegiate Church of Our Lady in Bruges which, at 115 metres in height, is still the tallest building in the city. It was completed in the fourteenth century, but the steeple was demolished and rebuilt after being hit by lightning in 1519. This helps date the work: the tower is shown as it looked before being rebuilt, so the painting was almost certainly done before 1519. On the right is the tower of the parish church of St Salvator, now Bruges Cathedral. Both are seen from the north and look as they would have done from that direction, but the city centre which lies directly between them has vanished. The towers are perhaps here because the sitter had connections with them, or possibly as an echo of the Virgin and Child (as one church was dedicated to the Virgin, the other to Christ) in the missing left panel.

The appearance of the painting has changed slightly over time. The sky was overpainted -- it was originally a brighter blue. The original frame, which is now missing, was at least partly red: there are traces of red earth pigment on both top and side edges. Curiously, the back of the panel has unpainted edges of the same size; the original frame must have had identical openings on both front and back. The back is now painted black but there is a layer containing blue, green and yellow pigment underneath, which might be part of the original decoration.

In the nineteenth century the painting was owned by Prince Albert. After his death in 1862, 25 of his paintings were given to the National Gallery by Queen Victoria, in accordance with his wishes.

Style: High Renaissance
The man in this portrait has not yet been identified. The upper ring on his left forefinger may provide a clue: it seems to show the arms of the Strauss family (the other ring seems to have shown another coat of arms which can no longer be deciphered). It has been suggested that the man depicted is a member of this family called Andreas zum Kampe, but at the date this portrait was made he would have been a little older than our sitter appears. It may depict another member of the family -- several are recorded in the city at this time.

In his right hand he holds a piece of paper with a verse from the Bible inscribed upon it in German, meaning 'The word of our God shall stand for ever', followed by its citation: Isaiah chapter 40.

Style: High Renaissance
The ointment jar the woman holds is an attribute of Mary Magdalene, but this seems to be a portrait of a woman in the guise of the saint. The sitter’s hairstyle and distinctive necklace, decorated with pearls and scourges, can be associated with early sixteenth-century medals and specifically with an anonymous portrait of the Spanish Queen Isabella I of Castile (1451--1504) in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Although the two paintings show different sitters, the similarities in their jewellery and hairstyle suggest that this may represent a figure in the Spanish court at the time of Queen Isabella. Unsuccessful attempts have been made to identify the sitter: a nineteenth-century label on the back of the picture identifies her as Mary Tudor, while other suggestions include Marie of Anjou, Eleanor of Austria and the latter’s younger sister Catherine. The edges of a book visible underneath the ointment jar indicate that the woman was not originally conceived as the Magdalen.

In addition to the elaborate necklace, the sitter wears other items of jewellery -- brooches, a diadem, bracelets and rings. The brooches encrusted with pearls, rubies and sapphires clasp her damask sleeves together. Around her wrist the woman wears a gold bracelet, set with oval rubies and miniature sapphires, and her fingers are adorned with three jewelled rings. Her head is crowned with a thin diadem decorated with miniature pearls and rubies. The opulence of her costume and jewellery is echoed by the lavish patterned green drapery in the background, against which the sitter's pale face appears to glow. A series of parallel lines faintly visible along the left side of her face and jawline were not originally intended to show: the paint layers on her face have become more transparent over time, revealing the strokes the artist used to indicate areas of shadow.

Although Netherlandish in style, this painting was probably produced by a Spanish or Portuguese artist influenced by Netherlandish art. The panel’s thick gesso ground is more commonly found in paintings from southern Europe.

Style: High Renaissance