wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This is the central panel of the S. Gerolamo Altarpiece, one of the most important works of the Florentine painter Francesco Botticini, who was an exact contemporary of Sandro Botticelli. It is thought that Botticini trained in the workshops of some of the leading painters in Renaissance Florence, including that of Andrea del Verrocchio, before establishing himself as a supplier of devotional paintings and altarpieces.

Sir Charles Eastlake, first Director of the National Gallery, acquired this altarpiece during his first visit to Italy in 1855 -- it was among the very first early Italian paintings to arrive at the Gallery. It once stood on an altar in the church of S. Gerolamo in Fiesole, hence its name, and Saint Jerome (Gerolamo or Girolamo in Italian) is prominently depicted in the separately framed image at the centre. Jerome, a celebrated fourth-century theologian, is best known for his translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek into Latin. He is shown here clutching the stone that, according to the Golden Legend, he struck against his chest to help him resist temptation.

During the fifteenth century, a cult dedicated to Saint Jerome found many followers, leading to the establishment of numerous religious houses across the Italian Peninsula. The church of S. Gerolamo in Fiesole was the regional centre of the Hieronymites, and was under the patronage of the Medici, who also owned an important villa nearby. The two figures kneeling on either side of Saint Jerome are not members of the Medici family, however. The Florentine patrician Girolamo di Piero di Cardinale Rucellai appears on the left (his circular marble tomb, not unlike the one depicted in front of him here, can still be seen in the church). His young son appears opposite him. Their coats of arms also appear on either end of the predella panel below. It is not coincidental that Girolamo was devoted to the saint with whom he shared his name. He possibly even chose the church out of reverence for his name saint, whose eremitical life and profound learning may have inspired him.

Thanks to the inscriptions at the base of the framed image of Saint Jerome, we can identify the four saints surrounding him: Saints Damasus and Eusebius appear on the left, with Saints Paula and Eustochium on the right. All four were contemporaries of Saint Jerome and corresponded with him. Paula and her daughter Eustochium received spiritual guidance from Jerome and emulated his life as a hermit. This is also true of Pope Damasus, who appointed Jerome as his secretary and supported the production of Jerome’s translation of the Bible. There are several saints called Eusebius, but the figure here is most likely Eusebius of Cremona, a disciple of Jerome who travelled with him to the Holy Land, where they encountered Paula and Eustochium. The angels hovering above them in the sky play musical instruments, the sound of which the worshipper is encouraged to imagine.

Style: Early Renaissance
The Greek sun god Apollo tumbles from the sky to shoot his unfaithful lover, Coronis (Ovid, 'Metamorphoses' 2:600 ff).

This is one of ten frescoes by Domenichino and assistants which originally adorned the walls of a room known as the Stanza di Apollo in a garden pavilion in the grounds of the Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati, near Rome.  Eight of the frescoes were transferred to canvas and are now in our collection. The iconographical scheme of the pavilion was conceived by Domenichino's friend Giovanni Battista Agucchi, both to glorify the Aldobrandini family and to express their philosophical and religious ideas. Agucchi's intellectual programme used classical stories to symbolise contemporary ideas. Apollo was not just the god of the sun, music, poetry and art, but by extension the light of reason. The scenes in the Stanza express the triumph of reason. Many of the stories, including this one, were taken from the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Domenichino was responsible for designing the frescoes, many of which he based on illustrations in sixteenth-century printed editions of the Metamorphoses. He may have used Antonio Tempesta's edition, published in Italy in 1606, but he revised the compositions to make them clearer and changed their format from horizontal to vertical (in order to fit the pavilion's walls).

This painting was originally on the right-hand wall of the Stanza. Some of Domenichino's preparatory drawings for it survive: there is a detailed pen and ink drawing for this composition in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, along with chalk studies for individual figures. Although clearly designed by Domenichino, by the time work reached the right-hand side of the room he was busy with other projects, and much of the actual painting was left to assistants.

Style: Baroque, Academic
Few people today experience a town or landscape lit only by moonlight. But in the seventeenth century, the ethereal, slightly cold quality of moonshine would have been entirely familiar -- especially in winter, when the nights were long. It was only in 1670, about 25 years after this picture was painted in Amsterdam, that the city became the first city in Europe to install street lights (invented by a painter, Jan van der Heyden). Before that, if you went out anywhere at night, the only light you would have would have been from your own lantern or, when skies were clear, the moon.

Like winter landscapes, moonlit scenes like this appealed to a particular type of buyer, and there was enough demand for several artists to specialise in producing them. Aert van der Neer was one of the most successful and painted many examples of both varieties. In this picture the moon has appeared only briefly, breaking through a tiny gap in a cloudy sky. The cool light creates a contrast between the deep darkness in the shadowy outlines of the town and the highlights on the rooftops and gable ends. It reflects dully off the surface of the river and washes over the fields and farmsteads on the opposite bank.

The moon didn’t only provide an interesting way to light up a pleasing view, it also enabled people to keep working and moving. Here several fishing boats are returning to their moorings at the town quay. It's likely that they are coming back to port just after dusk -- the moon appearing on the horizon suggests it is either rising or setting -- making the most of the extra visibility. It is hard for the human eye to perceive colour in low light, a fact reflected by van der Neer’s almost monochromatic palette. But there is just enough light for us to see that the pennants at the masthead of the two boats in the foreground on either side of the painting show the colours of the Dutch flag. The reddish hues in the sky and on the water are characteristic of his style. This lighting effect adds a hint of storminess, a dramatic mood which is heightened here by the remarkably turbulent sky.

Like most landscape painters of his time, van der Neer often either adapted real views to make them more aesthetically pleasing or created imaginary views designed to evoke a particular type of landscape. He also painted more than one version of some scenes. There is a painting by van der Neer very similar to this one, with boats in the same positions (City Art Gallery, Leeds). Van der Neer's work is difficult to date with any precision, but this picture was probably painted in the mid-1640s.

Style: Baroque
In this deeply devotional altarpiece Pittoni has used life-size figures to depict both the Nativity (the birth of Christ and his adoration) and the Trinity. It was painted in around 1740, although we don't know for which church it was commissioned.

Saint Joseph sits slumped in a chair, asleep, his limp right arm and foot positioned just in front of us. The Virgin Mary kneels in adoration of the Christ Child, who is lying in a manger of hay. She gazes at him tenderly, with one hand held gently to her chest and the other picking up a white cloth to cover the wriggling infant. These three figures together form the 'Earthly Trinity'. Above them, among glowing clouds, we see God the Father, one hand resting on a celestial globe, accompanied by cherubs and an angel. The Holy Ghost in the form of a white dove hovers over Christ, who belongs to both the earthly and heavenly trinities. A celestial glow fills the top half of the painting, illuminating Christ, Mary and the rustic straw-filled manger; the same light catches Joseph’s sandalled foot.

Colour distinguishes the heavenly realm from the earthly: Pittoni has contrasted the strong blues and greys of the draperies worn by the Virgin and Joseph with the pale tones of God and the angel. The composition is both compact and dramatic, full of incident and movement. The energetic cherubs perched on a cloud in the background give a sense of depth and space to the picture.

This picture is unusual, though not unique, in combining the Nativity and the Trinity. A similar, though not identical, subject was painted by Murillo in his The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities, also in the National Gallery's collection. Pittoni's picture was cleaned in 1959 and until then, the part of the painting containing the 'Heavenly Trinity' had been concealed by overpaint. This was added during the nineteenth century, perhaps an attempt to make the subject more recognisable and appealing to prospective buyers.

Pittoni was active in Venice during the eighteenth century and received commissions from tourists and Venetians. He drew heavily on the work of many Venetian painters, including Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, to whom this painting was wrongly attributed during the nineteenth century. This source of inspiration can be seen in the tonality of the work, and in its beautiful colours, which were typically blended and layered to achieve a glowing richness. Pittoni also often replicated Giovanni Battista Piazzetta's style in his own pictures, and the way he has depicted the Virgin's head here shows a similarity to those of Piazzetta's female saints.

Style: Baroque, Rococo
The Virgin presents the Christ Child, who balances on a gold-threaded pillow as he blesses the viewer. Further gold detailing can be seen in the decoration running along the rim of the Virgin’s blue robe, which reveals the artist’s name in Latin: ‘PAULUS’. The sculptural solidity of the brightly coloured figures is complemented by the diaphanous veil on which Christ sits and the semi-transparent golden haloes that link the Virgin with the three female saints behind her.

All three saints carry palm fronds indicating that they are martyrs who died defending their Christian faith. The one nearest to us is Saint Catherine, who appears with the broken spiked wheel on which she was tortured. Behind her, Saint Agatha holds a tray with her breasts, which were severed as part of her persecution. The third saint holding a dagger remains unidentified as various saints, including Saint Christina, Saint Lucy and Saint Justina, are often represented with this attribute. Passing through the archway in the distance is the elderly figure of Saint Joseph, leaning on his staff and carrying a joiner’s saw that alludes to his profession as a carpenter. During the medieval period, Saint Joseph was often relegated to the background of paintings so that the emphasis was firmly placed on the connection between Christ and his mother.

The scene takes place in an enclosed garden filled with rose bushes, symbolic of the Virgin’s purity. It is framed by classical architecture animated by little figures, such as the putti at the base of the arch in the middle distance and holding garlands in the frieze along the back wall. The distant arch is flanked by two columns and in the spandrels are two nude figures of Victory. Above them is a bearded God the Father blessing with one hand and holding an orb with the other. Although active for much of his life in Spain,  Paolo da San Leocadio was Italian by birth and was probably influenced by Renaissance architecture he saw in northern Italy during his youth.

The small size of this painting suggests that it may have been part of a portable altarpiece for a private chapel. The panel appears to have been slightly reduced along the top and left edges. The small-scale format is not typical of Paolo de San Leocadio, whose works mostly consist of commissions for prominent altarpieces in the Spanish towns of Castellón, Villa-real and Gandía. He also painted large-scale frescoes in the cathedral at Valencia, where he worked for almost a decade (1472--81) under the patronage of the Borgia pope Alexander VI.

This small panel is dated to about 1495, a period in the artist’s life about which not much is known. Claims that he returned to Italy are unfounded, but his style is closely associated with that of north Italian painters, and he had a clear influence on Valencian artists. Before that time these artists mainly worked in the Netherlandish style, influenced by contemporary artists such as Bartolomé Bermejo who painted the National Gallery's Saint Michael for a church in a town south of Valencia.

Style: Gothic
Cranach only painted a handful of portraits showing women of the Saxon court during his time as court painter to the electors of Saxony, and this is one of them. The black background contrasts with the woman's pale complexion, and her red dress draws out the pink blush on her cheeks.

Dressed in the fashion of the sixteenth-century German elite, she wears a red velvet dress and a wealth of jewellery, including heavy gold chokers around her neck, pearls and gold thread on her headdress and an abundance of rings on her fingers. This part of her outfit is physically impossible: the rings under her gloves, just visible through the slashes, are higher up her fingers than the ones over them. Cranach has manipulated reality to emphasise her wealth and beauty.

The letter ‘M’ is embroidered across the woman’s bodice, likely alluding to her name, although she is yet to be identified. Her facial features lack individual characterisation and instead display an idealised beauty, which is emphasised by her low-cut bodice and the high collar that draws attention to the subtle bulge of her breasts. The woman’s body is positioned at a three-quarter turn, but her gaze is directed towards the viewer. The women in Cranach’s portraits of identifiable people generally avert their gaze, keeping their heads in line with their bodies. This woman stares at us with a look of superiority. Cranach often adopted this expression in his portrayal of classical goddesses, such as Venus, or biblical temptresses, such as Eve.

Cranach painted a number of portraits in a similar style to this picture around the year 1525. In this group of pictures, individual female figures wear red velvet dresses and jewellery in the contemporary German style, with their bodies turned at a three-quarter angle and their gaze directed towards the viewer. Although the identities of some of these women are unknown, some are thought to represent women from biblical history, including Mary Magdalene. Depictions of cunning, sensuous nude women were produced frequently in Cranach’s workshop, and the theme of weibermacht (the power of women over men) was particularly popular in Germany in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Style: High Renaissance
The Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist support the body of the dead Christ. He rests on a stone slab, its long narrow shape suggesting that it is the one on which he was anointed and embalmed before being carried to his tomb.

The painting has affinities with the works of Giovanni Bellini, such as The Dead Christ supported by Angels, but we now know it is based on a plaquette by Moderno, the pseudonym of a goldsmith and medallist active in north Italy at the turn of the sixteenth century,  datable to around 1508--13. The artist may not have had direct knowledge of Moderno's composition; it seems that one of his plaquettes reached the Low Countries and attracted the attention of Jan Sanders van Hemessen, who painted an enlarged version of it, perhaps in around 1530 or 1540 (Museum Henri Boez, Maubeuge).

This variation on van Hemessen's picture by the Master of the Prodigal Son became extremely popular and was reproduced in many painted versions, perhaps over a long period, and in an engraving. The reason for its popularity is unclear, but it's possible that the plaquette, or one of the versions, was believed to have worked a miracle.

Style: High Renaissance
These are the four children of Daniel Graham (1695--1778) by his second wife, Mary Crisp. In order of age they are Henrietta Catherine (aged 9), Richard Robert (aged 7), Anna Maria (aged 5) and Thomas the baby in a gilded carriage decorated with a bird. They are portrayed at home at 11 Pall Mall, London. Their father was Royal Apothecary to King George I and King George II and was very prosperous.

In this very large picture -- one of the largest Hogarth ever painted -- the Graham children are portrayed life-size. At first sight they seem to be merrily at play, with high spirits and evident health. There are no conventional toys here. Instead, Hogarth uses various objects to tell us about the children and about the nature of childhood itself.

The extravagant baby carriage has a carved and gilded bird upon its handle, which perhaps flapped its wings when the carriage was pulled along. Beside the carriage is an elaborate silver dish full of fruit. Thomas, the seemingly lively baby, had already died while Hogarth was working on the picture. His death may have been the reason the portrait was commissioned. Hogarth drew a chalk study of the baby's features after death from which to work (British Museum, London). In the painting, Thomas clutches a partly nibbled rusk and reaches out to grasp the cherries in his sister's hand, which traditionally symbolise the fruit of paradise. The silver basket of fruit and the crossed carnations (funeral flowers) beside the baby's chariot become a tender memento mori, a reminder of death. A table-clock surmounted by a winged cherub holding an hour-glass and scythe -- symbols of death -- shows the time to be about 1.45pm, maybe the hour Thomas died.

Seated beneath a goldfinch in its gilded cage, Richard Robert balances a bird organ on his knee and little Anna Maria starts dancing, holding out her pretty silk brocade skirts. This type of small domestic barrel organ was a device used to teach caged birds to sing. The side of the box is decorated with a scene of Orpheus with his lyre. In ancient Greek myth, Orpheus attempted to retrieve Eurydice from the underworld with his music --  reminding us of lost baby Thomas. The goldfinch is a traditional symbol of Christ's Passion, and here also a metaphor for baby Thomas in his gilded carriage. The cat startles the goldfinch by scrambling with its claws up the back of the chair in the same way that death suddenly snatched one of the Graham children from their wealthy home. The goldfinch and cherries express the hope for Thomas's resurrection through Christ. Only the Almighty and Hogarth -- through the immortalising power of portraiture -- can bring the baby 'back to life'.

Henrietta, the eldest child, guides her lost baby brother's hand towards the cherries. Her long muslin apron tucked over her arm falls in a long s-curve embodying Hogarth's 'line of beauty.' She later married at 19 and had seven children of her own. Hogarth captures the transience of childhood and of life itself in this charming and moving portrait.

Style: Baroque, Rococo, Georgian
This is not a portrait of an individual person in the way we understand the idea today -- the identity of the sitter wouldn't have been considered relevant, either to the artist or the person who bought the painting. Instead it falls into the category of tronies (literally 'heads'). These were understood to represent a 'type' of person rather than an individual, and they were valued as a demonstration of the artist’s skill at portraying different characters and particular facial expressions in a convincing way.

It is one of a group of such studies, almost certainly made from life, by Rembrandt in the 1650s. However, we can’t be absolutely sure of the date of this one. While the first three figures painted onto the canvas are clear ('165'), the last digit is very faint. It could conceivably be the remains of a 3, but more likely the date is 1657. The free use of the brush, the deep background shadows, the very limited palette of browns and ochres and the way the painter has concentrated on the detail of the face, eyes and beard while only sketching in the rest of the picture are all consistent with Rembrandt’s style for the late 1650s and 1660s.

Sometime in the mid-nineteenth century the painting was given the title 'A Jewish Rabbi', probably because the man's divided, square-cut beard and his exotic hat, which was not typical of everyday dress at the time, suggest that he might be Jewish. Rembrandt lived near the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam and painted several portraits of Jews, and the same man also seems to have been used by the artist as a model for the so-called Portrait of a Rabbi, 1657 (Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco). However, there's no evidence that the title 'A Jewish Rabbi' was used before 1844, when the National Gallery bought the painting. The man also seems to have sat as a model in other works which Rembrandt made during the 1650s and 1660s, including Aristotle contemplating the Bust of Homer (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and A Bearded Man (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). The hat also seems to be the same one used in other paintings by Rembrandt, including his own Self Portrait at the Age of 34. Far from being the hat worn by an individual rabbi, it was probably a studio prop used when Rembrandt was trying to evoke a sense of history or exotic dress in a painting.

This painting caught the attention of the great eighteenth-century portraitist Thomas Gainsborough, who made a copy of it in about 1770 (Royal Collection, London).

Style: Baroque