wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This portrait was made to hang with one of a woman by the same artist (Oscar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur). They may have been joined together with hinges at the centre, forming a folding set known as a diptych, and were possibly made to commemorate the couple's engagement or marriage. This seems likely as both have flowers associated with marriage: the carnation or pink held by the man was part of a northern European wedding ritual, in which the bride had to hide a pink within her clothing for the groom to find. The woman holds a posy of lily of the valley, which were associated with both marriage and the Virgin Mary.

Like his bride, the man is shown in half-length against a deep blue background; like her, he has bright fair hair and corkscrew curls. His large collar is folded over to reveal its fur lining. The gold detail on his white chemise and the bands of his large rings are matt gilding made from real gold. The expense of the gold and the sumptuousness of the painted fur suggest the man was wealthy and of high status. That said, the middle classes were allowed to wear more extravagant clothing for weddings and wedding portraits than was usually permitted by the laws that governed how the different classes could dress.

The man's skin is painted with strong highlights, particularly around his brows, eyes and on the tip of his nose, imitating the effect of bright light on smooth, pale skin. This illusionism contrasts with the more schematic parts of the picture, such as the regularly sized tight curls and the use of real gold for the jewellery, which has such a different texture to the painted areas.

Style: High Renaissance
Two figures stand and sit in the shadows at the edge of a wood and contemplate an ancient church almost shrouded in trees. Light filters down a pathway between them, giving an eerie feeling to the image. The picture has lost some of its colour and vibrancy, but even so it brings the imagination into play: the atmosphere; the figures in silhouette so we have no idea what they look like; the dark doorways of the church, hardly encouraging entry.

Small enigmatic figures dwarfed by the old buildings they contemplate make a common theme in van Vries's paintings – why is this person here, will he go in through the door, what might happen next? The images seem to invite you to make your own interpretation of the scene, not just once but many times.

Style: Baroque
When this small still life was given to the National Gallery in 1888, it was believed to have been painted by Chardin. However, within 20 years there were already doubts about its authenticity.

For a while it was thought that François Bonvin, or one of his contemporaries, had painted the picture, as there had been a revival of interest in Chardin among French artists during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. However, this attribution has also been rejected. Technical examination of the earlier layers of paint indicates that the painting was most likely begun in the eighteenth century, although it may have been completed in the nineteenth century.

As the style, the handling of the paint and the signature are not consistent with confirmed works by Chardin, the painting is now judged to be a skilful pastiche by a sophisticated imitator.

Style: Neoclassical
Dughet's storm paintings were among his most admired works during his lifetime and in the eighteenth century. Two shepherds tending their flock struggle against the wind, their arms raised in alarm as they encourage their sheep to move down the path.

Tree branches bend and twist with the force of the storm. In the centre, a substantial tree trunk has almost broken into two pieces, showing the effect of strong winds and perhaps lightning. The curved country lane leads our eye back and forth across the scene until we notice another shepherd and sheep fleeing towards Roman buildings. Dughet spent most of his career in Rome and often visited the surrounding countryside to make sketches, which may have inspired the landscape we see here.

The canvas is extremely dirty and the varnish has yellowed, which makes dating this work and appreciating the artist's use of colour quite tricky. This painting most likely dates from around the 1660s, during Dughet's later career.

It remains uncertain whether Dughet or his brother-in-law Nicolas Poussin was responsible for introducing this kind of stormy landscape. The composition in Dughet's painting is very similar to Poussin's Storm (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen) painted in 1651. However, where Poussin emphasises the responses of the people, who cover their heads from falling debris and whose cattle-driven cart has come to a standstill, Dughet is more interested in showing the effect of the storm on the landscape: the unpredictable side of nature is conveyed by the broken tree stump right in front of us and the darkened, rain-filled clouds.

This painting was among the first works purchased by the National Gallery from the renowned collector John Julius Angerstein in 1824. The nineteenth-century critic John Ruskin, who did not like Dughet's paintings, was particularly critical of the tree on the right, calling it a 'violation of truth'.

Style: Baroque, Academic
The tall chimneys of the house hidden among the trees seem the most stable things in van Ruisdael's picture, holding on to the steep hillside that slides down towards the river. The slender trunks of the birch trees on the right are twisted and crooked, and the leaves turning yellow are ready to fall and be swept away by the water.

The water pounds against the bridge's legs as it tumbles down between them. The people on the bridge pause -- one of them kneels, perhaps to pick something up, open to the elements, tiny and vulnerable. Another man trudges up the hillside path towards the house with his dog, little more than a speck of paint in the distance.

The rushing water turns an intense white where it foams over the stones and catches the sun. Van Ruisdael has painted the rocks in great detail: the tops of the closer ones in the water are razor sharp and craggy, becoming darker below, the edges more rounded where the water has worn them away. Further away beyond the bridge, the cliff face catches the sun, warming the lichen clinging to each block of stone. To the side of the cliff, he shows us the formation of the strata, layer on layer (incidentally giving the picture itself variation and interest).

Norwegian spruce trees reach up into dark, threatening clouds that gather overhead. The oak tree near them looks sturdy enough, hardly moving in the gathering storm, but a tiny oak sapling on the edge of the foam in the foreground is seemingly at the mercy of the torrent, part of its fragile trunk already broken and washed away.

From the late 1650s onwards, van Ruisdael painted many views that included waterfalls. For some time it was assumed that, since the Dutch landscape is almost uniformly flat, he must have visited a more mountainous country to give him such an abundant source for these pictures, although no record of such a journey has been found. But his friend Allart van Everdingen had been to Scandinavia in 1644 and returned with a number of drawings of the craggy mountains and waterfalls that became a source for van Ruisdael's more dramatic images.

The painting was once considered a pendant to a Waterfall by a Cottage in a Hilly Landscape: the two pictures had always been together, portrayed a similar subject and were the same size. But in the mid-twentieth century it was decided that the second picture was by Jacob Salomonsz. van Ruysdael, Jacob van Ruisdael's cousin who imitated his style. This was confirmed when narrow strips that had been added to the picture were removed and the signature not only proved false but resembled that with which Jacob Salomonsz. signed documents.

Style: Baroque
Formerly titled A Village Green in France, this is a view near Verberie, between Senlis and Compiègne, in the north-eastern department of Oise. We see a large flat field, in which cows are grazing, beneath a pale blue sky, which fills most of the picture. A row of trees with full foliage on the right of the picture casts dark shadows on the grass. A low hedge in the background divides the field from trees and houses in the distance.

Bonvin exhibited at the Salon from 1847, primarily painting still lifes (for example, Still Life with Book, Papers and Inkwell) and scenes of everyday life, but from 1869 he turned to landscape painting. This picture shows the influence of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, which Bonvin had studied at the Louvre. His work was particularly praised by the critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary, a champion of realism. Along with other artists, including Corot, Bonvin was commissioned by the artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps to paint pictures for his house at Fontainebleau.

Style: Realist
Previously dismissed as a nineteenth-century forgery, this painting is now known to be a seventeenth-century copy of a panel by Pietro Perugino for the Benedictine Abbey of San Pietro in Perugia, Italy. It is one of two almost identical versions of a  Baptism of Christ which were offered to the National Gallery in the nineteenth century as authentic  Renaissance paintings. Both are copies of Perugino’s Baptism, from the predella of the high altar that was dedicated in the year 1500. We bought this panel, and the other was sold to the Royal Museums in Canterbury (now Canterbury City Council Museums). Both were subsequently thought to be forgeries, but in 1970 we took pigment samples from our painting and were surprised to discover that it contained no ‘modern’ pigments. In fact, when these samples were analysed again in 2009, it was established that the painting includes a rare pigment, lead-tin-antimony yellow, which has generally been found only in paintings made in Rome in the seventeenth century. Other pigments are also consistent with a seventeenth-century date, as is the warm pinkish ground.

In the mid-seventeenth century Perugino’s original painting was still at San Pietro in Perugia, where it would have been seen by  Sassoferrato. Known primarily for his numerous images of the Virgin -- such as  The Virgin in Prayer -- Sassoferrato was also a skilled copyist, following the common seventeenth-century practice of reproducing works by other masters (his Virgin and Child Embracing is a version of an etching by  Guido Reni). Between 1630 and 1650 he produced several pictures for San Pietro -- some were original compositions but most were copies after Raphael, Perugino and others.

This painting shows several of Sassoferrato's stylistic idiosyncracies: the rounded faces and broad, flat leaves are quite unlike those in Perugino's original and more like those in Sassoferrato's Virgin and Child Embracing. He is also one of the few painters known to have used lead-tin-antimony yellow.

Style: High Renaissance, Baroque, Academic
The Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist stand with Christ in his red marble tomb supporting his lifeless body. He is partially covered by a burial shroud, but the spear wound on his side is visible. Streaks of blood on his chest have run down from the cuts on his forehead caused by the crown of thorns.

The Virgin's face is contorted with grief as she wipes her tears with her white veil. John places his hand to his breast, an agonised expression on his face. All three members of the Trinity are present: behind Christ is God the Father, also shown grieving, like a human parent; above him is the dove that represents the Holy Ghost. The divine figures occupy a heavenly realm; the yellow-gold sky seems to have dispelled the dense storm clouds, which have scattered to the edges of the scene.

The small figures in front of the tomb are probably the painting's patrons, their size emphasising both their own humanity and the divinity of the group they worship. Women kneel on one side and men on the other, their hands pressed together in prayer. They are being led by the figure at the centre dressed as a canon, who raises his right hand and looks up towards Christ, creating a connection between the patrons and the holy figures. The patrons cast shadows on the grass beneath them, a detail that Baldung Grien included to emphasise their physical presence in contrast to the heavenly vision they are witnessing.

The two coats of arms on either side of the picture identify the donors: the one to the left is probably that of the Bettschold family of Strasbourg, and the other may be that of the Rothschild family. The painting may have been made for St Pierre-le-Vieux in Strasbourg, where Baldung Grien was born and lived. His signature appears on the tomb, just above the women's heads, along with the date (1512), painted to look as though they are carved into the marble.

Style: High Renaissance
The Attack on Cartagena is one of a series of paintings by Licinio of scenes from ancient Roman history. They were made to decorate a room and were originally painted on wooden panels but 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 Continence of Scipio, The Rape of the Sabines and The Intervention of the Sabine Women. A further two pictures from the same series are in a private collection: Coriolanus and Scipio rewarding the Soldiers.

The Battle of Cartagena was a Roman assault on the Carthaginian stronghold of New Carthage on the coast of north Africa in 209 BC, during the Second Punic War. The city was very difficult to attack as it was situated on a peninsula which was only connected to the mainlaind by a narrow strip of land. In Licinio's painting we are given a strategic view of the countryside on the left and the coast on the right. It was here that the Roman general Scipio Africanus set up camp, cutting the city off from the land while the Roman fleet blockaded it from the sea. The Carthaginians attacked the Romans at the east gate of the city and got close to the Roman camp. Scipio had to use all the might of his forces to hold them off. Then an unexpected storm drained the lagoon into the Mediterranean, allowing the Roman soldiers to approach the city from the north while the naval forces penetrated it from the south.

Here, the viewer is thrust into the centre of the action. Roman soldiers lay siege to the eastern gatehouse of New Carthage as the infantry shelter behind their alternating pink and blue shields, and spears are fired into the city from a great machine of war. The earth tones of the soldiers' skin, the ground and the city walls are broken by a sequence of luminous colours in the costumes -- pink, pale blue, lemon yellow, jade green and gold -- that articulates the procession of soldiers marching across the panel. The kneeling soldier in pink is probably Scipio as he appears in similar costume in The Continence of Scipio. On the right of the painting some of the soldiers are wading into the lagoon. A plume of smoke rises from the blasted battlements as barefoot soldiers clamber onto one another's shoulders to scale the city walls.

New Carthage fell to the Romans, forcing the Carthaginians to surrender their extensive territories along the eastern coast of Spain as well as their treasures and silver mines. The Continence of Scipio depicts another episode from the Second Punic War.

Style: High Renaissance
David Teniers the Younger was one of the most successful Flemish painters of the seventeenth century. His work was prized by important collectors, and he amassed great wealth and attained high status himself: he was awarded a patent of nobility in 1680. At this time there was a fashion for pictures of peasant life, often in the interior of an inn and with characters larger than life, as in this painting.

The woman lighting her pipe glares at the self-confident young man, his red hat at a jaunty angle, who holds up his glass of ale. She blows smoke, her lips pursed in his direction, as the man behind her puts a hand on her shoulder in a kindly gesture. Behind them, another person approaches a figure slumped by the fire, perhaps asleep, perhaps drunk. Teniers left the viewer to interpret the expressions and gestures he portrayed.

Style: Baroque
This is one of Aert van der Neer’s largest paintings. A river takes centre stage, stretching into the middle distance beyond the lifting bridge and reflecting back the slanting light of an evening sky and the darker shadows of the boats and trees.

These effects and this mood are typical of van der Neer’s work, but usually his views are much more open; this painting has a rather more secretive feel. We can see the houses on each bank only obliquely between the trees and hedges, catching a glimpse of the occasional fancy gable, an elaborate entrance gate and, on the far left, a smart garden pergola. Among all these impressive residences the only building of which we are given a clear view is a wooden privy which sits on stilts above the water just to the left of the tree. There is more lavatorial humour in the foreground, where one dog is busy sniffing another.

The figures in the painting represent different social classes. The group on the left are expensively dressed. The man who bends forward to examine the dead hare held by the huntsman is wearing rhyngrave style, which is characterised by his very full 'petticoat' breeches, gathered at the knee and decorated with looping ribbons. You can see another even more extravagant example of this costume in Portrait of a Young Man by Gerard ter Borch. It not only establishes the figure in van der Neer's painting as wealthy and fashionable, it also helps us date the picture to about 1660--5, since this fashion did not appear until after 1660.

There is another knot of well-dressed people on the right bank near the bridge, but the other figures in the picture are all working people. A milkmaid walks away from us on the left bank, three men are all busy with their boats and, on the right, a peasant family walks with their ox. The man is blowing a horn which is what may be attracting the attention of the lady gesturing at him from the bench on the opposite side of the river and the huntsman’s dog who lifts its head to look in that direction.

The arms of Amsterdam are on the stern of the trekjacht in the foreground, which has a Dutch flag furled at the stern and an orange and white pennant at the masthead. This was a small cargo or passenger vessel drawn by a horse, which travelled along the canals between towns. This one also has leeboards and a full rig, so it could also have been sailed.

There is some evidence from early sales catalogues that the painting may be a view of Maarssen, which is on the River Vecht about five miles from Utrecht. However, it does not match up with any known contemporary prints or paintings of this area, and van der Neer seems to have rarely depicted actual places. So it's possible that we see an idealised reminiscence of the Vecht, which had many comparable reaches lined with houses. Less probably, this may be a view of the River Amstel.

Style: Baroque
In this powerful piece of storytelling, David Teniers the Younger has drawn on his ability to show character and incident with an insightful brush. He has illustrated one of Christ's parables, in which Christ told of a rich man who squirrelled away his grain and his goods, hoarding them to ensure his future comfort instead of using them for charitable deeds. But God commanded that the man's time to die had come: ‘Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?’ (Luke 12: 20).

Teniers has lit up the faces of both figures, unsparing in his depiction of greed and covetousness. The old woman weighs coins on her handheld scales but stares at the old man with hard eyes and a downturned mouth. He seems almost unaware of her. The bags he clutches rest empty on his lap -- whether he is waiting to take the money from the table or has just put it there, Teniers leaves us to decide. The man gazes out across the pile of deeds and the glinting coins on the table; it’s as if, in the darkness beyond, he already sees the end that awaits him. The room itself is shabby and uncared for. The accumulated clutter of bottles, books and boxes on the shelf above the woman’s head appear to be forgotten: they are gathering dust. They are there partly to symbolise the uselessness and transience of worldly objects and partly to show Teniers’s skill in painting still-life objects.

What is the relationship between the two figures? He wears a ring but she does not, though at the time in the Netherlands wedding rings could be worn on any finger, or sometimes not worn at all. Under her dull, heavy outer garment she wears a finely tucked chemise, and her bodice is embroidered with tiny jewels. Large bags crammed with money sit beside her elbow. His collar is clean and his coat sleeves are satin, but the fur trim looks scruffy and both the coat and his hat are old-fashioned, suggesting that he’s too miserly to waste money on new clothes. Whatever their relationship, beyond them in the shadows is a newly turned over hourglass, its sand beginning to run out -- a symbol that the old man’s end is coming soon.

These moralising paintings were popular in the seventeenth century. Teniers painted several on the theme, including The Rich Man being led to Hell, which is far more startling than this picture -- monsters and demons escort an old miser to his fate. The theatrical representation of the character in that picture is very different from the expressive handling of the restrained emotion on the faces here.

Style: Baroque
In the courtyard of this vast and palatial complex of buildings, a woman stands with her young servants. The bright red of her dress and the dark blue of her attendants’ outfits are echoed in the feathers of the parrot that is perched on the pedestal to the right. Two men seemingly demonstrate their devotion to the woman: one kisses the front of her dress while the other, down on one knee, presses his hand to his heart.

Such images appealed to sophisticated collectors throughout Europe, who appreciated the minute detail, clever spatial illusion and knowledgeable use of classical architectural motifs. The figures here were probably not painted by Steenwyck. He often collaborated with other artists -- they worked on the figures while he painted the architecture and landscape.

Style: Baroque
A man kneels in prayer, his patron saint, Peter -- identifiable by the key he holds -- standing behind him. This panel was once the left wing of a triptych (a painting in three parts). The other wing, Saint Paul and a Donatrix, shows his wife with Saint Paul. We don't know who the donors were, but they were clearly wealthy people. The man seems to be in his thirties or forties, and is dressed in the style of around 1515.

These figures, and the missing central panel, would have been visible when the altarpiece was open. On the back of this panel, visible when the altarpiece was closed, is Saint Jerome, monk, hermit and translator of the Bible. He is painted in grisaille to look like a stone statue in a niche -- a very popular effect in the Netherlands in the early Renaissance.

Saint Jerome is shown wearing a cardinal's robes. While there were no cardinals in the fifth century, Jerome was the pope's secretary; in such a role by the fifteenth century he would have been expected to be a cardinal. He holds an open book, presumably the Vulgate, the standard Latin text of the Bible which he spent so many years producing. Endearingly, a small lion jumps up at him like an eager dog. While Jerome was living as a hermit in the desert he removed a thorn from a lion's foot and it became his devoted companion.

Style: High Renaissance