wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This picture -- a combination of interior scene and still-life painting -- shows Vuillard's room at Château-Rouge in Amfreville, Normandy. His friends Jos and Lucy Hessel rented the house for the summers of 1905, 1906 and 1907.

A posy of wild flowers on the marble mantelpiece sits alongside a number of bottles, artworks tucked behind them. Another picture hangs on the wall, far above the painting rags that are hanging up to dry. The richly decorated walls compete with the still-life arrangement on the mantelpiece. Despite this interplay between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, the foreshortened mantelpiece, which appears to jut out of the picture, marks the artist's move to a more naturalistic approach.

On the reverse of the painting there is a rapid sketch of three figures -- a woman and two children -- on a beach. The woman crouches down to pet one of the two dogs sat beside her.

Style: Nabi
In this exquisite small painting on copper, three women are looking after two infants in a grand neoclassical setting. Leafy trees and blue skies dominate the top third of the picture space. Purple drapery is hung from the wall, providing a backdrop to the tender scene in the foreground. In the centre, a woman breastfeeds an infant, while an attendant or companion next to her holds up a second baby for a kiss. A woman to the left is busy arranging bedding in a wooden cradle. The open loggia and warm light suggest that the scene takes place in a southern climate. To an eighteenth-century audience, the women’s clothing would have been understood as antique Roman dress. The semi-transparent pieces of cloth over the women’s breasts may have been added later, presumably for the sake of modesty, as the paint is different from that used for the rest of their clothing.

The painting shares similarities with a series of eight paintings by Lagrenée at Stourhead in Wiltshire. One of these, The Indulgent Mother, which is also painted on copper and of almost the same dimensions, shows three women who look very similar to those here. Similar tiles, columns and drapery are depicted in The Spartan Mother also at Stourhead, although that picture is painted on canvas and much larger. The painting at Stourhead most like our one is Contented Old Age, another small-scale painting on copper, in which an elderly man, a nursing mother and two infants crowd around a crib strikingly similar to the one in our picture.

It has been suggested that the National Gallery’s painting may be either La Candeur (Candour) or La Douceur (Sweetness), which Lagrenée exhibited at the Salon of 1775. The pictures belonged to William Petty, Earl of Shelburne until he was made 1st Marquess of Lansdowne in 1784. The owner of Bowood, he commissioned several paintings from leading artists in Paris in 1774--5. However, our painting does not match the description of either La Candeur or La Douceur at the sale of Lansdowne’s possessions after this death. Another painting by Lagrenée appears in Lansdowne’s second posthumous sale, which is described as ‘Maternal Affection – a beautiful group’ and does seem to match the subject matter of our painting.

We do not know whether the subject was chosen by Lagrenée himself or by his patron (possibly Lansdowne). However, it was of special interest for a contemporary audience as motherhood, and particularly the practice of breastfeeding one’s own children rather than sending them out to a wet nurse, was much discussed on both sides of the Channel during the second half of the eighteenth century. Many artists responded to these new ideas of maternity and childhood, and depictions of motherhood in both genre scenes and portraiture became more frequent. It is typical of Lagrenée that he chose to treat the subject of motherhood in neoclassical guise. This is idealised motherhood, as flawless as the women’s rosy cheeks and skin like marble. Maternal Affection is an intimate picture of an intimate scene, exquisitely painted with meticulous detail and beautiful colouring, which translates physical closeness into emotional warmth.

Style: Neoclassical
These three paintings are fragments of a much larger work in fresco, a technique that involved painting directly onto wet plaster. The whole image showed the fall of Lucifer, the rebel angel whose pride caused him to be cast out of heaven. He was often associated with the devil in Christian thought.

The fresco, by Spinello Aretino, decorated a wall in the church of the confraternity of Sant'Angelo, Arezzo, which was also known as the Chiesa del Diavoli. Its original appearance is recorded in engravings and drawings made in the nineteenth century.

The large fragment shows Saint Michael the Archangel ready to strike the devil, while two smaller ones come from the border of the work and show a band of figures set within decorative shapes. They were purchased in 1855 by the archaeologist and explorer Austen Henry Layard, who presented them to the National Gallery in 1886, when he was a trustee. Layard was a founder of the Arundel Society, which aimed to document frescoes in Italian churches and palaces through drawings and art-historical descriptions.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Perugino painted this altarpiece for the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza (known as il Moro). He had been recommended by the Duke's agent, who described him as 'an exceptional master [whose] works have an angelic and very sweet air'.

The picture stood upon the altar in the side chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael in the Carthusian monastery (also known as a charterhouse or certosa) in Pavia, a town outside Milan where the Duke had his palace. Our panels formed the lower tier of two in this large-scale construction. The upper tier showed the Annunciation: the Archangel Gabriel, on one panel, giving the Virgin Mary, on another panel, the news that she would conceive the son of God. Between these panels was an image of God in glory, which is still in the church.

It seems that the Duke was not happy with the length of time that Perugino was spending on the paintings -- he wrote to his agent in 1499 demanding that he set the painter a deadline. Shortly afterwards, however, the Duke was captured by invading French forces, and the altarpiece was completed in the early sixteenth century by two other painters: Fra Bartolommeo and Mariotto Albertinelli.

The painting is an excellent example of Perugino's skill in working with oil paint. According to Vasari, the sixteenth-century biographer of artists, he was praised for his 'harmonious blending of colours'; painters travelled from as far as France, Spain and Germany to see his work. This was due to his knowledge of the Netherlandish technique of painting in oil, which was renowned for being incredibly sophisticated. The skin, for example, was painted using thin layers of paint, taking advantage of the white ground covering the panel to make the flesh appear pale. More generally, using oil enabled him to create a depth of colour by layering different tones, using translucent glazes which modified the colours beneath. It is possible that his talent at painting in oil was due to a visit to Venice in 1495 -- artists there were more expert in the medium than in central Italy, where he was trained.

The pictures were removed to the picture gallery in Milan in the late eighteenth century, at which time copies were made. By the time they were purchased by the National Gallery in the mid-nineteenth century they had been cut down in various places, and all of them at the bottom edge.  Fortunately, their original appearance is preserved in the copies which remain in the monastery. The central panel of the upper tier is also still in the church, surrounded by two paintings by Ambrogio Bergognone that originally belonged to a different altarpiece.

Style: Early Renaissance, High Renaissance
The Adoration of the Shepherds and The Dead Christ were originally joined together by a central hinge to create a diptych. It is very likely that this diptych was made for Eleonora of Aragon, duchess of the northern Italian city of Ferrara. Ercole de' Roberti was the official court painter at Ferrara and at the time that this work was made he was busy painting murals for the Castello Vecchio in Ferrara.  A list of Eleonora's possessions, drawn up in 1493, records that she owned a diptych showing the birth and death of Christ which could be opened and closed like a book. Traces of red velvet remain on the back of the panels, and according to the inventory the diptych was covered with cherry-red velvet as well as gilded silver ornaments, now lost.

The diptych was a precious object as well as an object for religious contemplation. Its external beauty would have made it a suitable object for a duchess to take with her when travelling or to keep open on a table in her private room. The small scale of the panels, the size of a paperback book, reflect the fashion in courtly circles for miniature painting -- highly valued for the skill required to paint detail on such a small scale.

The images within the diptych reflected Eleonora's religious concerns. Jesus is shown at the very beginning of his life on one side and after his death on the other. In both scenes he is naked and the focus of the images is his body. Eleonora's personal prayer centred on the Corpus Christi ('the body of Christ' in Latin) which was the celebration of Jesus's institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. This was when he asked his disciples to remember him after his death by eating bread and drinking wine: his body and his blood. In Catholic tradition the bread and wine consumed at the Eucharist transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Eleonora was closely connected to a religious group, the confraternity of the Corpus Christi, and she was buried in their church in Ferrara.  She also took a high-profile role at the annual procession that celebrated the Corpus Christi. Eleonora owned many pictures that depicted Christ's life and Passion and her private collection included works by Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini and Ercole.

Style: Early Renaissance
Christ rising from the Tomb and Saint Andrew (?) were parts of the high altarpiece painted in about 1540 for the church of S. Pietro at Maggianico, near Lecco, on the shore of Lake Como in northern Italy. Christ rising from the Tomb was the central panel of the altarpiece. Christ's fluttering white pennant marked with the sign of the Cross symbolises his victory over death.

It is not easy to reconstruct the original appearance of the altarpiece, which consisted of several panels -- a type of altarpiece known as a polyptych. It seems that on the right of Christ rising from the Tomb was a panel showing Saint Roch, and on the left was Saint Christopher carrying the infant Christ.

A panel almost certainly of Saint Andrew, which is also in the National Gallery's collection, was in the centre of the lower part of the altarpiece with Saints Peter, Bernard, Ambrose and Anthony at its sides. Andrew's cross is usually depicted as an X-shaped saltire, but here it is T-shaped.

The lowest row of panels (known as the predella) is in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan. It is monochrome and depicts scenes of Christ and the apostles. Monochrome predella panels were a particular feature of  sixteenth-century art from this region. All the panels of the altarpiece were enclosed in a gilded frame.

The altarpiece was situated above the high altar, which was made of a similar pink marble to that of Christ’s painted tomb, creating a clear visual connection between the risen body of Christ depicted in the altarpiece and the Eucharist -- the body of Christ -- on the altar during Communion.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the altarpiece was removed from the church and broken up, and the panels were sold. We do not know the whereabouts of the larger panels, apart from the two now in the National Gallery, which did not enter the collection at the same time. Christ rising from the Tomb was bought by the Gallery in 1895, but Saint Andrew (?) was bought in 1896 by Ludwig Mond, who bequeathed it to the National Gallery in his will; it was presented to the Gallery by his widow in 1924.

A triptych by a collaborator of Gaudenzio Ferrari of Saints Ambrose, Anthony Abbot and Jerome remains in the church of S. Pietro at Maggianico, which has caused further confusion. However, this was not part of the original high altarpiece. The triptych was commissioned by the Ghislanzoni family for the altar of Saint Anthony.

Style: High Renaissance
These panels were made for a member of Florence's ruling family, the Medici. They came from the Palazzo Riccardi, which had formerly been the Palazzo Medici. One panel shows the Annunciation, when the Virgin Mary was told she would conceive a son; the other, the patron saints of the Medici family.

They are similar in size, scale and viewpoint, suggesting that they were designed as a pair of pendants and were intended to hang where they could be viewed together. Their semi-circular shape is not necessarily original -- they may have been designed as rectangles. The panels might have been made as bedheads, which were mainly rectangular; an example of a contemporary decorative bedhead can be seen in Giovanni di Paolo's painting, The Birth of John the Baptist. But their good condition suggests that they may have been on display in a position where they would be less likely to suffer damage.

A probable location is high up over a door -- just like Lippi's image of  the vision of Saint Bernard, which was also made for the Medici. They may have hung over the entrance to the Piero de' Medici's study in the palace. Its ceiling was decorated with ceramic roundels (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London) by Luca della Robbia, and representing the signs of the zodiac (and, therefore, the months of the year).  The Annunciation would have been an appropriate subject: it was celebrated on 25 March, the first day of the Florentine calendar year. It has been suggested that the depiction of the Medici saints was intended to show the protection they offered to the city throughout the year.

We don't know who exactly commissioned the panels, but The Annunciation includes a stone carving of an emblem used by Piero de Medici (1416--1469) from about 1447: feathers and a ring. Piero also had a particular devotion to an image of the Annunciation in a Florentine church, Santa Annunziata: we know that he commissioned a marble tabernacle for it sometime in the years around 1450.

Style: Early Renaissance, Gothic
The Institution of the Eucharist and The Israelites gathering Manna were once part of a predella of an altarpiece made for the church of San Domenico in Ferrara. The former was probably the central panel, flanked on either side by two rectangular panels -- one showing the gathering of the manna, the other Abraham and Melchizedek (while the original of this scene has been lost, an early copy, now in private collection, shows how it would have looked). The main panel of the altarpiece showed the dead Christ lying on his mother's lap, surrounded by mourners. This type of image is known as a Lamentation.

It is possible that the altarpiece was made to commemorate Eleonora of Aragon, the Ducchess of Ferrara, who died in 1493. Ercole, the painter for the court at Ferrara, made the diptych of The Adoration of the Shepherds and The Dead Christ for Eleonora only a few years earlier. Portraits of Eleonora, her husband Ercole I d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara, and her brother Alfonso of Aragon are included in the altarpiece. Eleonora is shown as a mourner, her husband as Nicodemus, a Jewish High Priest who brought spices to anoint Jesus's body, and her brother as Joseph of Arimathea, the man who offered Christ his family tomb. The inclusion of all three family members suggests that the altarpiece was intended as a homage to Eleonora after her death. She had a simple funeral and grave and so it is plausible that she may have had a more elaborate memorial in the form of an altarpiece.

Eleonora was particularly devoted to the Corpus Christi (Latin for 'the body of Christ') which was celebrated in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. The body of Christ was the subject of the diptych Ercole painted for Eleonora and this altarpiece, with its focus on Christ's sacrifice and body, would have been a fitting memorial to her.

Style: Early Renaissance
These panels come from the front of a cassone, a large and highly decorative chest that was painted with narrative scenes. Such chests were widely made throughout Italy from about 1400 to the early sixteenth century. They were often associated with marriages, and were one of the items of furniture that a groom was expected to acquire for his home in expectation of his bride.

The decoration of cassoni often reflected this link, providing examples of what were felt to be appropriate behaviour for husbands, wives and children, drawn from classical literature or history, as in Cassone Panels with Scenes from the Life of Trajan. The tale shown here, of how the early Romans abducted women when they couldn't find wives, was part of ancient Roman history. It was recounted by Livy and Plutarch, both of whom were translated into Italian during the fifteenth century. Domenico Morone seems to have based his depiction on Plutarch, perhaps on Battista Alessandro Giaconello's translation, published in Aquila in 1482.

The panels are painted on two horizontal planks of spruce. They have been cut along their side edges and may originally have been joined together. It's hard to say how much has been lost, but their original dimensions were probably comparable with those of Dido's Suicide by Liberale da Verona. It may be that the heraldry of the two families was shown on either side of the chest, with the new coat of arms of the bridal couple in the middle.

Style: Early Renaissance
This altarpiece was painted for the Buonvisi Chapel in the church of S. Frediano in Lucca. It shows the Virgin Mary with her mother, Saint Anne, and the infant Christ enthroned and surrounded by saints. On the left are Saint Sebastian, shot with arrows, and Saint Paul, and on the right are Saint Lawrence, holding the gridiron on which he was martyred, and Saint Benedict, wearing white monastic robes.

The Buonvisi family from Lucca had an international banking business and also traded, especially in silk. Members of the family held important political roles in Lucca and also represented the city on diplomatic missions. The Buonvisi had offices in Naples, Venice, Genoa, Lyons, Tours, Louvain, Antwerp and London.

Three of the saints represented in Francia's altarpiece are the name saints of members of the Buonvisi family: the patron who commissioned the altarpiece, Benedetto (1450--1513); his brother, Paolo (died 1484); and their father, Lorenzo (died 1451). Saint Sebastian, who was often invoked against the plague, may have been included because plague broke out in Lucca in 1510, about the time the altarpiece was painted.

The two elements of this altarpiece -- the main panel and the lunette (the semicircular panel above it) -- are carefully connected both in terms of theme and composition. In the main panel, the young Virgin sits holding her baby, thinking about the future sacrifice of her son. This is suggested by the scene carved on the pillar behind her head, which represents the sacrifice of Isaac from the Old Testament (Genesis 22: 2). God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of his faith but at the last moment supplied a lamb to replace Isaac on the sacrificial altar. In Francia's altarpiece, the infant John the Baptist strides before the Virgin's throne pointing up towards the infant Christ and the lunette above. He carries a banner that reads 'ECCE AGNUS DEI', meaning 'Behold the Lamb of God'. His message is that Christ must be sacrificed but that no lamb will be exchanged in his place.

In the lunette we see the Virgin again, now old and resembling her own mother. She grieves over the lifeless body of her son who has been sacrificed for the salvation of mankind, a scene known as a pietà. The bright red drapery worn by Saint Paul in the main panel leads our eye to the dress of the Virgin and then up to the praying angel in the lunette above.

In 1891, the main part of the altarpiece was transferred from its wooden panel to a canvas to preserve it. The lunette remains on the wooden panel on which it was originally painted, although the spandrels are later additions to make the painting easier to display as a rectangular picture when it was shown in a gallery. In both paintings there are wide cracks that developed as the paint was drying and where paint has subsequently been lost. This is particularly so in the areas of orange or red drapery. To disguise the damage, both pictures have been extensively repainted, and some of the old repainting is now becoming more visible as it discolours.

Style: High Renaissance
The Building of the Trojan Horse and The Procession of the Trojan Horse by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo are part of a series illustrating the fall of Troy, an ancient city on the coast of Turkey that was besieged by Greek armies for ten years. The story of the Trojan War was a central part of Greek mythology.

The Aeneid by Virgil (Book 2) gives the clearest account of the end of the war: the Greeks built a giant wooden horse in which they could hide their men and left it outside the impregnable walls of Troy. The horse was a sacred animal to the Trojans and they brought the model into the city, believing it to be a gift from the gods. Under the cover of darkness, the Greek soldiers left their hiding place and took control of Troy.

These scenes follow Virgil's account fairly closely. Domenico's first painting shows tradesmen sculpting and painting the wooden horse, and in the second image the horse is being wheeled into Troy by the unsuspecting Trojans. There is a third sketch in this series, now possibly in a private collection in Paris, which depicts the Greeks descending from the horse to attack the city.

Painted in around 1760, these scenes were probably intended as preparatory designs for larger oil paintings. Domenico's monumental picture, The Procession of the Trojan Horse, which measures about two by four metres, is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, but the whereabouts of the other large canvasses, if they existed, is not known. As preliminary sketches rather than finished paintings, Domenico's technique looks rather hurried with fluid brushstrokes, thickly applied paint and pale colours; he has given little attention to details such as the faces and clothing, but has still managed to capture a sense of movement and emotion in both scenes.

Domenico spent his earlier career working on commissions in and around Venice, but also in Spain and Germany, many of which were in collaboration with his father, Giovanni Battista, and brother Lorenzo. These sketches were possibly made shortly after Domenico's return to Venice from Würzburg, where he had assisted his father on an impressive series of frescoes -- see Domenico's oil sketch The Marriage of Frederick Barbarossa and Beatrice of Burgundy.

Style: Rococo, Neoclassical