wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
We don't know the identity of the young man who gazes directly at us. His elegant dress, fastened so as to almost entirely conceal his white undershirt, suggests a wealthy background. His dark brown hair is combed elegantly and parted to reveal much of his forehead. His red cap and the green cloak laid over his left shoulder may identify him as a scholar.

The portrait may be by the Florentine painter Biagio d'Antonio. Although he was born in Florence, Biagio spent most of his career in the small city of Faenza, working for the ruling Manfredi family. He is best known for paintings that decorate furniture, such as cassone frontals or spalliere, but he also produced a number of portraits. The one closest to this work is Portrait of a Young Man in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. It could give a sense of the original appearance of the National Gallery portrait, which has many small losses in the sitter’s face and in his lilac dress. The paint surface is also obscured by yellowed varnish.

Biagio’s training in the workshop of the painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio could account for the bust-like crop of this portrait. Its sculptural qualities would originally have been more evident. The simple blue background does little to distract from an engagement with the sitter.

Portraits in Renaissance Italy were frequently commissioned as a token of love or marriage. In other cases, a portrait could ease the difficulty of someone's absence, brought about by frequent travels or perhaps even death. Unfortunately, we don't know why this portrait was made, but its display in an Italian household would have reminded the owner of the young man depicted.

While nothing is known about the sitter's identity, the fact that the National Gallery acquired this portrait from the Florence-based art dealer Stefano Bardini suggests the work came from that city. Bardini supplied numerous collectors and museums with early Italian art at a time when interest in such works was at its peak. His former saleroom has been converted into a museum featuring numerous works that remained unsold after his death in 1922. It gives a unique impression of the art market in the early twentieth century.

Style: Early Renaissance
A young man kneels before a richly dressed woman enthroned in a classical alcove, and looks at a portable organ sitting on the step beside him. She is an allegory of Music -- the organ is her attribute. Along with Rhetoric, this picture was part of a series showing the seven liberal arts painted for Federico da Montelfeltro, Duke of Urbino in the late 1470s. There's a branch of laurel attached to the wall at the back, a symbol of victory; Federico was a noted military commander. On the arch of the throne are Kufic letters which perhaps relate to Persian musical theory.

The young man is dressed in the height of fifteenth-century fashion. His jacket is made of figured cloth-of-silver patterned in green and edged with fur. The right sleeve is extravagantly slashed, with golden eyelets in the hem of the slash. The gap is held together with three tasselled ribbons, the middle one of which is left undone to show a red doublet, which is itself slashed to reveal his linen shirt. His red cap lies on the steps. It was  usual for the liberal arts to be shown as enthroned women, often with exponents of their arts seated below or beside them. Music was traditionally accompanied by Tubalcain, a biblical figure known for being the first blacksmith, but it is difficult to believe this expensively dressed young man is assuming the role of a smith. This was once thought to have been a portrait of Federico's son and successor, Guidobaldo, but he was only born in 1472. It might be his brother-in-law, Costanzo Sforza, who was born in 1447.

We don't know where the series was meant to be displayed -- perhaps Federico's library at Urbino -- but the panels were originally much larger and were designed to be hung high up on the wall. Above the throne is an inscription giving one of Federico's titles, which were listed in the paintings in a set order; 'ECCLESIE CONFALONERIUS' (Standardbearer of the Church) came at the end of the list, making Music the last in the series. Music and Rhetoric were probably originally from paired compositions, hung on the same wall on either side of a door. Music must have been in a corner, as the marble wall behind her ends just to the right of her throne. She is strongly lit from the right, as is the organ. There was presumably a window in the wall to her right, so the lighting in the painting mimicked the light in the room.

Infrared reflectography shows some underdrawing, including the man's head, which was originally drawn in somewhat lower and to the right of where it is painted. There are traces of pouncing on the green textile on the steps. On the back of the panel are drawings in black paint, including a sketchy back-view of three nudes, a horseman and two heads. They are quickly done and are possibly the work of assistants.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
The inscription on the stone parapet tells us that this is a portrait of seventeen-year-old Stefano Nani from Auro painted by Licinio in the year 1528. Auro is a village in the Alps to the north of Brescia in Lombardy, which at the time was ruled by Venice.

Stefano is presented as a pensive young man, gazing dreamily into the distance. He leans his elbow on the inscribed parapet, his gloves in his hand and his other hand on his hip. Licinio has made the bulk of Stefano’s clothes fill almost the whole composition in order to create a sense of his imposing physical presence despite his young age. The angle of his broadly spread arms directs our attention up in an inverted ‘V’ to his pale oval face against the plain beige background. The fur lining of his open black robe is shaped almost as an arrow pointing to Stefano’s brightly lit face. Licinio has used a restricted range of colours in tones of white, black, grey and creamy beige to create a calm, harmonious image. The pensive mood, restricted palette, plain background and subtle use of light and shade, particularly in the skin, suggest the influence of Titian or perhaps Giorgione, which would be expected in a Venetian portrait of 1528.

Stefano’s gold chains (which form another ‘V’ shape) and his jewelled gold rings would once have appeared more prominent, but the painting is covered with a discoloured varnish which makes everything appear more brown than it should. The pendant hanging from the chain appears to be a gold tooth or fang, which may have been a kind of toothpick. Other portraits made in northeast Italy in about 1520 also feature toothpick-like jewels. Lucina Brembati, a noblewoman from Bergamo, wears a similar pendant from a chain round her neck in the Venetian artist Lotto’s portrait of her painted in about 1518 (now in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo). Bernardino Licinio belonged to a family of artists from Bergamo who worked from the island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon and from Venice itself, where this type of ornament seems to have been fashionable. However, by mid-century they were no longer in style -- Della Casa's Galateo, written in the 1550s deplores wearing toothpicks as uncouth.

Although this youthful portrait depicts Stefano Nani as a dreamer, records reveal that he went on to become an important senior civil servant in Venice and held the posts of 'Scrivan delle Rason vecchie' in 1542 and he was also 'Scrivan of the Scuola della Trinità' in Venice.  'Scrivan' translates as 'Scribe'. There is another version of this portrait in the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.

Style: High Renaissance
It is the animals which take centre stage in this picture. On a grassy riverside knoll, four cows and a magnificent jet black horse are spotlit by the warm afternoon sun. Aelbert Cuyp was a brilliant painter of these beasts, especially cattle. He knew exactly how to convey their languor and ponderous bearing, how the light would catch their heavy, rippling hides and the tufted fringes on the powerful ridgeline of their backs.

Being ponderous animals, cows do not strike many poses. You can paint them lowering their heads to graze or lifting their heads to low. You can depict them lying down, standing up, turning their heads; side on, head on, from behind. But that’s about it. So Cuyp worked by perfecting a series of these postures and often repeated them in his paintings. Indeed some of these cows appear in other pictures in our collection -- the one on the far left and the cow standing and viewed head on both appear in A Distant View of Dordrecht, with a Milkmaid and Four Cows, and Other Figures ('The Large Dort'), for example.

There are several reasons why cows feature so prominently in Cuyp’s pictures. The seventeenth century had seen increasing reclamation of flooded land, especially around Dordrecht, Cuyp’s home town. The distant castle here, outlined in the golden haze on the far side of the river to the left, is the ruined castle of Merwede, about a mile to the east of Dordrecht. It dates from the thirteenth century and a part of one of the walls still stands today.

The damp, low-lying pasture around here was much better for grazing cattle than sheep, and farmers had quickly learned to exploit this, improving both breeding stock and feeding practice and hence productivity. Cheese and butter were key exports and cattle had come to symbolise wealth and peaceful prosperity. Many of Cuyp’s rich Dordrecht-based clients would have had an interest in dairy farming or have owned land and property in the countryside near the city.

It may be that the gentleman on his horse depicted here reflects this kind of proprietorial interest. But, like the cows, it is another motif which Cuyp often incorporated into his landscapes. The image of a horseman who has stopped to survey the scene and chat with a herdsman or maid usually works both as a visual device, drawing us into the view, and, perhaps, a social comment, confirming the harmony of an established social order. Here, however, the feeling is a little different. The two cowherds do not engage with the mounted rider -- perhaps they are even gossiping about him. He has his back to them and, instead of taking in the prospect across the water, he looks out of the picture towards an unseen view in another direction. We can’t ignore his presence, however: his dark outline against the grey clouds forms a dramatic intervention between the warm, soporific colours of the cattle and the golden glow of the sky.

Style: Baroque
Eleven finely dressed men inspect and discuss the contents of a large room packed with works of art, astronomical instruments and antiques. Their distinctive features suggest that these might be portraits of known artists, connoisseurs, collectors and art dealers -- the 'cognoscenti' of the painting’s title -- though none have been securely identified. The paintings, sculpture and prints are also apparently meticulous miniature copies of real examples by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century artists, mostly local to Antwerp, but the collection of them together in an exaggeratedly large room is the fancy of the artist. It's most likely that the function of this picture was to showcase a range of the best objects in the city as a kind of aspirational ‘wish list’; an ideal collection.

The paintings crowding the room show a wide range of subject matter: religious and secular, landscape, seascape, architectural interiors, genre and history pictures and portraits. They include a church interior by Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger (on the wall on the left), and a still life with dead game in the style of Frans Snyders (one of the five pictures selected for particular attention on the lower right). Other pictures are in the distinct styles of Joachim Beuckelaer, Joos de Momper, David Teniers the Elder and Frans Francken. The large print on the table is Ceres mocked by Peasants by Goudt after Adam Elsheimer; the open folio beside it shows prints by Albrecht Dürer and Lucas van Leyden. The table on the left displays scientific instruments -- a pair of dividers, a compass, an astrolabe and a celestial globe -- indicating that these art lovers were also interested in scientific learning. Other luxury items, including a Persian rug, blue and white porcelain, and coins and medals, complete the display.

The picture showcases the pleasure and erudition of art appreciation and collecting, and of scholarly pursuits such as astronomy. But the presence of a monkey -- a traditional symbol of the foolishness of man's endeavours -- on the windowsill is perhaps a reminder of the frivolity and ultimate futility of hoarding beautiful and expensive objects.

This type of picture showing collectors and visitors in real or largely imaginary settings was popular in Flanders in the seventeenth century. This example has in the past been attributed to Hans Jordaens the Younger or as a collaboration between Frans Francken II and Hieronymus Francken II, but neither attribution is convincing. It is likely that the picture is the work of two painters: a portrait specialist responsible for the figures, and an adept copyist for the architectural interior and copies of works of art. A clue as to the artist(s) lies in a picture of a similar composition in the collection of Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, which is inscribed with initials that can be interpreted as ‘F/MW’ or ‘WM’ and ‘TF’ (in both, the ‘F’ most likely stands for fecit, which is Latin for ‘he/she made it’).

Style: Baroque
The Virgin Mary sits sideways on a wooden bench or parapet before a rural landscape, in a twisting pose similar to that in Raphael's Garvagh Madonna. The infant Christ smiles at the viewer, his arms affectionately around his mother's neck. One of his feet rests on the parapet, the other is supported in his mother's hand. The Virgin's eyes are downcast and her mood is sombre, as though her thoughts are already on Christ's future sacrifice.

The work probably dates from the early years of Raphael's time in Rome when he was working in the papal apartments of the Vatican. The painting is called the 'Mackintosh Madonna' after Miss Eva Mackintosh, who donated it to the National Gallery in 1906. It also known as the 'Madonna of the Tower' because of the building just visible in the left background.

The picture is in a ruinous and repainted condition, in part due to its being transferred from panel to canvas in the eighteenth century. It is so damaged that it gives little idea of how it once looked. However, study of the cartoon for the painting (British Museum, London), which is also damaged, sheds some light on its original quality.

The shaded background of the drawing indicates that Raphael intended the figures to be bathed in a soft atmospheric twilight, similar to that associated with the works of Leonardo. The lighting would have emphasised the rounded contours of their faces, which now appear rather flat in the painting. The characterisation of the mother and child is also easier to appreciate in the drawing, which more clearly contrasts the joyous embrace of the child with the more pensive response of his mother. The slight turn of the Virgin's face away from her son expresses the terrible burden of the knowledge of his fate that she must endure. The drawing has a psychological depth that has been lost in the damaged painting, but which reveals why this was one of Raphael's compositions that appealed most powerfully to later artists.

The original cartoon for this painting may have been used later by Domenico Alfani as the basis for his Virgin with Saints Gregory and Nicholas, dated 1518 (Galleria Nazionale, Perugia). Alfani had collaborated with Raphael and is known to have been sent a compositional drawing by him to help in the painting of an altarpiece. The outlines for the figures in the drawing for the Mackintosh Madonna have been carefully pricked and also incised with a stylus, indicating that the drawing was transferred in order to be copied for painting. The back of the sheet of paper would be rubbed with black chalk so it acted like carbon paper and then the outlines marked with a stylus or pricked with a pin, leaving the outlines on the panel to be painted. The method Raphael used for transferring the design for the National Gallery painting cannot be determined -- the incised and indented contours on the drawing may relate to a later copy, such as that made by Alfani.

Style: High Renaissance
This is one of a pair of panels that flanked a central image of the Trinity: God the Father with Christ and the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. It shows a diverse range of angels. The angel-like figures in red, with six wings and red flames upon their heads, are seraphim. They have chubby faces and short, curly hair. Winged figures in blue have similar features but blue flames upon their heads. They are the cherubim, a different rank of angelic being.

Below them hover four angels. Two wear coloured robes; the one in green plays a lute. In front of them is another pair, dressed in white, who both swing thuribles containing incense. The one at the front holds a boat-shaped vessel -- a nef -- which was also used to hold incense.

The heavenly figures in this panel are decorative but they also look in adoration towards the scared image of the Trinity on the central panel, emphasising its importance. The music they play and the incense they swing encouraged the viewer to imagine a multi-sensory experience of heavenly sounds and scents.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
This painting of a man wearing a jaunty, feathered cap and holding up a glass of beer, a refill jug in his other hand, has historically been called 'The Toper'. This was a popular term for a drinker or a drunkard, and a relatively common subject in Dutch and Flemish painting. However, it is possible that the figure is in fact a personification of Autumn, deriving from a series of four paintings of the seasons by the Flemish artist David Teniers the Younger (also in the National Gallery’s collection). Teniers' Autumn is a drinker who raises a glass of wine.

This picture has previously been attributed to Teniers, who was the most famous seventeenth-century painter of peasant life, but its lesser quality suggests that it is the work of one of his many followers.

Style: Baroque
The Virgin Mary is crowned by Christ, her son. Her glorious reception in heaven after her death, where she takes her place on a throne by Christ’s side, is not described in the Bible but in the Golden Legend, a thirteenth-century compilation of lives of the saints.

The episode was very popular in Florentine painting where it formed the central panel of polyptychs, usually flanked by images of saints. It has been suggested that two panels showing two standing saints -- Peter and James on one, and Bartholomew and Anthony Abbot on the other (now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa) -- were the original right-hand panels in this altarpiece. They may, however, have been painted by a member of Gaddi's workshop. A pointed arch topped with a tall gable featuring roundels frames each panel; the roundels show the Virgin at the Annunciation and a bishop saint. Our panel has been cut down at the top but it's likely that it too originally ended with a pointed gable. The left-hand panels of the altarpiece have not been identified.

Like many of the city's artists, including Bernardo Daddi, Gaddi probably modelled this work on versions of the scene made by the renowned Florentine painter  Giotto for an altarpiece in the Baroncelli chapel in the church of Santa Croce. Gaddi may also have known Nardo di Cione's version painted for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli (Victoria and Albert Museum, London), which has very similar poses. Another version of the picture by Gaddi in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., is almost identical except that the angels at the foot of the throne turn towards the viewer.

Gaddi has used a variety of techniques to achieve the decorative effects. The cloth of honour -- the textile pinned to the back of the throne, the red lining of which curls over at the edges -- is decorated with mordant gilding (gold leaf applied over a sticky substance called bole). The angels kneel on a decorative textile painted in the sgraffito technique, though the effect is coarse in comparison to the delicacy of their wings, which were made using the same technique. Close examination of the wings reveals that the individual feathers have been drawn by scratching through the pastel paint shades with a very fine sharp tool to reveal the gold leaf beneath.

When the picture entered our collection it was said to have been made for a Franciscan convent in Miniato near Florence -- but there were no Franciscan convents there until the fifteenth century. It is possible that it was painted for the church of San Miniato al Monte, where Gaddi had painted an altarpiece for the sacristy in 1388 and another in the mid-1390s, and then moved to the Franciscan convent San Francesco al Monte, which was founded in 1417--18.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Winter threatens in Wouwerman's little picture. Clouds tower up. An old man crouches in the undergrowth, gathering faggots (twigs bound up to make a fire). Behind him, a woman sits with her back to him, facing the weather and nursing a baby bundled up against the cold. A gnarled tree sheds its few leaves -- its branches quiver in the rising wind -- and a dog sniffs after rabbits.

The white horse on the skyline dominates, its mottled coat gleaming in the dying light. Its mane is windswept and its pose awkward -- Wouwerman has painted it urinating. Its tack is simply rope instead of leather and the wooden saddle looks heavy, held on with thin rope. The picture shows the endurance of animals and people alike against the bleak Dutch landscape, and was probably designed to hang in the warmth of a town house, perhaps as a comfort or perhaps as a moral message.

There are a number of paintings by Philips Wouwerman in the National Gallery's collection, several of them featuring his characteristic white horses -- A Horse being Shod outside a Village Smithy for instance, or Two Horsemen at a Gipsy Encampment, One having his Fortune Told.

Style: Baroque