wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This crowded banquet scene shows Christ's first miracle (John 2: 1--10). He, his mother and the disciples were invited to a wedding feast at Cana in Galilee. When the wine ran out, Mary told her son. Although protesting 'my time is not yet come', he nevertheless asked to have six stone jars filled with water which, when tasted, was found to be wine of the finest quality. Christ is seated at the right next to his mother, who has told the servants to do his bidding. The astonished steward -- probably the man in red on the left -- exclaimed: 'Thou hast kept the best wine till last '.

Mattia Preti vividly conveys the emotional drama of the episode. In the foreground servants are decanting the miraculous wine, while the man seated next to Mary lifts his hand in astonishment. In the centre of the composition an exquisite goblet is held out by the steward, into which a Black servant pours a golden liquid. In the background, the party goes on, the guests oblivious to the astounding event that has just taken place.

Preti travelled throughout the Italian peninsula in search of appreciative patrons. From 1653 he was in Naples, where he filled the void left by the death of the painters Jusepe de Ribera, Bernardo Cavallino and Massimo Stanzione. Preti's work was a sophisticated blend of Venetian, Lombard and Roman art and he introduced the Neapolitans to innovations from other artistic centres. At the same time he kept the dramatic contrasts of light and shadow that had originated with Caravaggio and had remained popular in Naples well after Caravaggio's death, much later than elsewhere in Italy.

Intended for a private picture gallery, not a church, this is one of a number of adaptations of the Marriage at Cana which Preti painted while in Naples. Preti made a speciality of grand banquet scenes throughout his career. They were largely modelled on the paintings of  Veronese. The group on the left -- the bride and groom, the dog, the servant with his back to the viewer and the boy holding the glass -- are all inspired by Veronese's large-scale Marriage at Cana (Louvre, Paris), though transformed under the influence of Caravaggio and Ribera. Also influential was Rubens's acclaimed painting The Feast of Herod (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), then in the collection of Preti's patron Gaspar de Roomer, a wealthy Flemish merchant who lived in Naples.

Painted with a quick and masterly touch, this is a picture of Preti's maturity, in which problems of composition, lighting and the arrangement of figures are all cleverly resolved. A number of pentimenti are visible in the architecture on the right and in the red jacket of the figure on the left, showing the artist making changes to the composition as he painted.

Style: Caravaggist, Academic
Christ's disciples were gathered together to celebrate the Jewish Feast of Weeks when, according to the Bible, a strong wind began to blow and flames like 'tongues of fire' appeared on their heads. The disciples were filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak miraculously in a number of languages (Acts 2: 1--4). This moment, known as Pentecost, was when the disciples were given the divine authority -- through receiving the Holy Ghost -- to go out to preach about Christ and his message. Their ability to speak a number of different languages was therefore important.

Here, the Virgin Mary presides over the gathering. Her robe is covered in gold striations -- lines that make it look as though she is bathed in divine light. The artist often used this technique, which was popular with artists of the earlier fourteenth century, to make holy figures stand out (look at his scenes of the coronation of the Virgin and image of the Trinity).

The Holy Ghost is represented as a tiny white dove above the Virgin's head; it has miraculously flown through the beamed ceiling and is surrounded by holy light, represented as a red semi-circle. The Virgin and disciples look towards it and clasp their hands in prayer. On their heads are the double-tongued flames described in the biblical account.

A dowel (wooden peg) on the reverse of this panel shows that it was once connected to another picture; it is very likely that it was one of a series of scenes that made up a larger work. Two other pictures of similar dimensions have been connected with it: an image of the Ascension (Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome) and a scene of the Nativity (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan). It is possible that these pictures belonged to a triptych which consisted of two rows of scenes framing a central image of the Virgin and Child. In the church of San Giovanni Battista in Alba there is a picture of the Virgin and Child signed by Barnaba di Modena and dated 1377 -- it might have been the central panel of this triptych.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Lemons and oranges teeter on the edge of a table or ledge in front of an earthenware jug, a huge melon, some round boxes used for storing cheese, a bottle -- perhaps holding wine -- and a coarsely woven basket. These everyday items, seemingly placed at random, are carefully arranged, increasing in size as our eye moves further into the picture. The sophisticated composition creates a sense of depth and draws us in.

Meléndez has chosen to paint from a low viewpoint, close to the objects, and he has skilfully reproduced their textures, shapes and colours. It is this quality that makes his still-life paintings (bodegón in Spanish) so distinctive. The lemons, complete with their lumps and knobbles, look real enough to pick up; one seems about to roll off the table and fall at our feet. Twine has been roughly tied around the neck of the jug and holds a creased white paper cover in place in order to preserve its contents.

Light and shade play across the different surfaces, making the objects appear more convincingly three-dimensional. The rind of the lemons and oranges glows in the light, its dimpled pattern created with dots and daubs of different coloured paint, while a highlight of white paint suggests the gloss of the large melon's smooth rind. Meléndez has brilliantly conveyed the basket's uneven surface by layering lighter strokes of paint on top of darker ones, distinguishing the edges that catch the light from the recesses of the weave.

This work probably dates from the 1760s, Meléndez's most prolific period for producing still-life paintings -- he made 100 or so during the last 20 years of his life, spanning the 1760s and 1770s. Like other still-life painters he made use of everyday objects he owned, and this is why some items repeatedly appear in his pictures. Meléndez's Still Life with Oranges and Walnuts has a similar selection of simple foods and containers that might be found in any Spanish household at the time.

Although Meléndez began his career as a figure painter, it was with pictures such as this that he established his reputation as the leading still-life painter in eighteenth-century Spain. His realistic depiction of objects, skilfully described in all their colours and textures, moved the tradition away from the austere still-life paintings of the previous century, exemplified by Francisco de Zurbarán and his son Juan.

Style: Neoclassical
According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus Christ was circumcised, like all Jewish baby boys, when he was eight days old (Luke 2: 21). He is shown naked, sitting on a cushion upon a table or altar, clenching his little fists as a priest performs the ritual. His mother, the Virgin Mary, gently props him up; the old man behind is his father, Joseph.

An attendant holds back the priest's robe with a gloved hand, an action mirrored on the right, where a woman pulls up a semi-transparent cloth that covers part of the table. It's as though they are pulling back stage curtains to reveal the scene's central drama, the circumcision. The transparent cloth resembles those worn by Christ in Byzantine images of the Virgin and Child, and may be a deliberate reference to them; they were a familiar sight in Venice due to the city's mercantile connections in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The robes and veils of the figures around Christ have been carefully painted in jewel-like colours using expensive pigments. The most costly was ultramarine, used for the Virgin's blue robe, but it has degraded over time. The border of the priest's cloak is decorated with 'pseudo-Kufic' lettering -- an imitation of Arabic calligraphy often used in medieval and Renaissance Italian painting to distinguish biblical figures whose origins were in the Holy Land. The priest's striped headdress is decorated with floral designs similar to those found on Persian and Ottoman ceramics, and the woman in the yellow veil wears a cap decorated with rows of pearls, probably also intended as a sign of her eastern origins. All these details reflect the trading and diplomatic relationship between Venice and the Turkish Ottoman empire.

Christ's nakedness emphasises his vulnerability, and his position on the altar is probably intended to bring to mind a sacrifice -- like that of a lamb, part of Jewish religious tradition in this period. In the Gospels, John the Baptist refers to Christ as the 'lamb of God', anticipating his sacrifice at the Crucifixion. So, while the picture depicts a moment from Christ's infancy, it foreshadows his adulthood and the events that became the foundation of the Christian faith.

Paintings of this subject were highly popular in Venice in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In order to meet the huge demand for his pictures, Giovanni Bellini had a large workshop of assistants who produced works in his style. This painting was made by workshop members who produced pictures with his signature. Bellini may have contributed to the women's faces, but the texture of the fabrics is not as convincing as in his portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan, for example, suggesting that much of the work was done by his assistants.

It inspired numerous copies in Venice and beyond. The close-up view and the arrangement of the figures comes from a composition by Bellini's brother-in law, Andrea Mantegna. It shows the presentation of Christ as a baby in the Temple (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), a picture that Bellini himself adapted (Museo della Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice).

Style: High Renaissance
In the central panel of this triptych (a painting in three parts), the Virgin Mary, surrounded by the golden rays of the sun, embraces Christ, her infant son. He holds an orb topped with a cross, a sign of his universal power, while she is crowned as Queen of Heaven by two angels.

The frame is original and includes inscriptions that help to identify the saints on the two shutters. Saint James the Great appears on the left-hand shutter while Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, is on the right. As the shutters were designed to fold over the central panel, the outer faces were also decorated -- they show a scene of the Annunciation to the Virgin.

The painting was probably used for private devotion in the home. The design means the picture could stand up on any surface without support, and could be folded up and carried or put away if necessary.

Style: High Renaissance
This sculpture is a copy of a bronze thought to be by Adriaen de Vries (now in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig). De Vries was born in The Hague, trained in the workshop of Giambologna in Florence and worked in Italy, then Augsburg, Germany and Prague.

The bronze dates to about 1600, but this marble version was probably made in Italy in the first half of the eighteenth century. This pose is typical of classical images of the goddess Venus bathing, and it may stem originally from a marble sculpture of Venus washing her foot made in the second century AD (Uffizi Gallery, Florence). Giambologna’s workshop produced several similar versions which de Vries would have seen, and there are also similarities to one of the bronze figures around the Hercules Fountain in Augsburg, which is by de Vries.

The sculptor of the National Gallery's sculpture has not copied the original pedestal of the Braunschweig version, which looks inappropriately small for the figure and was cast separately.

Style: Baroque, Neoclassical
This Carrara marble portrait bust of a bearded man wearing neoclassical military costume is chiselled on the reverse: 'LEONARDUS RINALDIUS/ A. VICTORIA. F/ MDXXXXVI' ('Leonardo Rinaldi / A. [presumably Alessandro] Vittoria F/ 1546'). However, the bust is not in the style of Alessandro Vittoria (1525--1608), the leading sculptor working in Venice in the second half of the sixteenth century, nor has a Leonardo Rinaldi been identified among Venetian noblemen of that time. The sculpture is nonetheless of very high quality and is likely to have been made in Italy in about 1620. The inscription was probably added to increase the value of the sculpture when it was sold.

It was presented to the National Gallery by the Art Fund in 1964 in memory of William Gibson, who was Keeper of the National Gallery from 1938 to 1960. It is one of the very few sculptures in our collection -- another is the porphyry Head of 'The Dying Alexander'.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This bronze statue shows the Roman god and hero Hercules fighting the giant Antaeus in one of his ‘Twelve Labours'. Antaeus could not be killed while he remained in contact with his mother, the Earth. Hercules, who was famous for his strength, was able to lift the giant and crush him to death.

The statue may have been produced in Venice, most likely in the nineteenth century. It was assembled from several units that were made separately and is based upon a terracotta model of approximately the same size, which was then in the Accademia in Venice but is now in the Ca d’Oro, also in Venice. This model is signed S.M. and is the work of Stefano Maderno.

Maderno was a sculptor from Lombardy in northern Italy, whose work reflects the transition from Mannerism to the Baroque. He achieved considerable fame in Rome in the early seventeenth century, most notably for his naturalistic statue of Saint Cecilia made around 1600 for the church of Santa Cecilia in Rome. He also produced a number of small terracotta models, bronzes and marbles based upon antique models, many of which depict the Labours of Hercules.

Style: Neoclassical
Samuel van Hoogstraten, the artist who made this peculiar object, called it a wonderlijke perspectyfkas -- a curious perspective box. It is a rectangular wooden cabinet painted on the inside and outside, and open on one end to let in light.

Looking into the open side, which was originally covered with translucent oiled paper, we see a distorted jumble of walls, windows, open doors, crooked floor tiles, misshapen chairs and an oddly proportioned dog. It is only when we peer through a peephole -- there's one on either side of the cabinet -- that everything falls into place: we see the illusion of a three-dimensional seventeenth-century Dutch house, with views into a variety of rooms and outdoor spaces. The rooms are quiet: one woman lies asleep in bed, while another reads in a chair. The only other living being in the house is a dog, though a man outside peeks in through a window.

A letter addressed to the artist lies on one of the chairs in the middle room, while a portrait print bearing the van Hoogstraten family crest appears to the left of the bedroom door. This suggests that we are actually peeping into the artist’s imaginary home. And van Hoogstraten further teases the viewer, reminding us of our intrusion into this quiet domestic space. When looking into the box from the left, our behaviour is mirrored by the man opposite, who secretly watches the reading woman through the window. Looking through the hole on the right, our gaze is met by the dog, which has spotted us spying on the women in the house.

The three external sides of the box show allegorical scenes representing concepts that inspired the artist. The Latin inscriptions on scrolls of paper identify them: ‘Amoris Causa’ ('for the sake of love'), with a young artist drawing Urania, one of the Muses; ‘Lucri Causa’ ('for the sake money)', with a putto pouring coins from a cornucopia while a painter works on a portrait; and ‘Gloriae Causa’ ('for the sake of glory'), with a putto placing a gold chain around a painter’s neck and crowning him with a laurel wreath. On the top lid of the cabinet is an image of a nude woman lying in bed, usually identified as Venus, accompanied by the infant Cupid. It is distorted in the manner of an anamorphosis, which means that it can only be perceived correctly from one vantage point (for another example, see 'The Ambassadors' by Hans Holbein the Younger). However, the distorted projection is not entirely successful, as there seems to be no point from which the image is convincingly corrected.

Reflecting a fascination with perspective and optical devices, such boxes were produced in the Dutch Republic from about 1650, for a relatively short period of about 25 years. Only six survive today. The National Gallery’s example is the most complex and sophisticated in its representation of perspectives, and the only one with two peepholes, giving views of the same interior from opposing directions.

Style: Baroque
These saints come from a polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) painted in about 1450 for the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Pratovecchio, Tuscany. Most other parts of the Pratovecchio altarpiece are also in the National Gallery.

San Giovanni was a Camaldolese nunnery, and the saints included are those who were important to the nuns there. On the front of the pilaster are -- from top to bottom -- Saint Benedict, the author of the Benedictine Rule (the regulations of his religious order) which the Camaldolites followed; a pope, possibly Gregory the Great; and a bearded monk in white, probably Saint Romuald, the founder of the Camaldolese Order. Benedict and Romuald both wear white, as did the Camaldolites, and both also appear on the Ascension of John the Evangelist Altarpiece, made for the same church.

On the side of the pilaster a youthful saint holds what looks like a heart and a book. This might be Anansus, patron saint of Siena, who was sometimes shown holding a heart. Below him is a bishop-saint, and at the bottom is Saint Paul, one of the founders of the Catholic Church, holding a book and his attribute of the keys of heaven.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
These saints come from a polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) painted in about 1450 for the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Pratovecchio, Tuscany. Other parts of the Pratovecchio altarpiece are also in the National Gallery.

San Giovanni was a Camaldolese nunnery and the saints on its altarpieces were those who were especially important to the nuns there, or to the altarpiece's patrons. On the front of the pilaster at the top is a monk in white -- the Camaldolites wore white habits -- with a tau (T-shaped) staff, the attribute of Anthony Abbot. This could be him, though he was more usually shown as an old man with a beard, as in Giovanni di Nicola's Saint Anthony Abbot. Saint Anthony was one of the founders of Western monasticism. He lived much of his life as a hermit or in small communities in the deserts of Egypt, and so was especially suitable for the Camaldolites, who followed a strict lifestyle in which they lived alone, coming together only to eat and pray.

Below him is Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with the wheel on which she was tortured, and Saint Sebastian, holding three arrows. Both were very popular saints in the fifteenth century. Sebastian was thought to give protection against the plague, successive waves of which ravaged central Italy in the fifteenth century. He appears on many medieval and Renaissance altarpieces, such as Crivelli's The Virgin and Child with Saints Francis and Sebastian. Saint Catherine was an early Christian virgin who had refused to marry because she claimed to be married to Christ: a role model for all nuns.

On the right side of the pilaster are Saint Jerome, another desert hermit and role model for the Camaldolites, at the top; Saint Paul -- one of the founders of the Catholic Church, along with Peter on the opposite pilaster -- with a sword; and a young female saint with long, fair hair holding a jar and martyr's palm. The jar and the hair suggest that this is Mary Magdalene, but the palm is surprising as Mary isn't a martyr. It might be meant as Saint Lucy, who sometimes is shown carrying her eyes in a jar.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
This sculpture in imperial Egyptian porphyry on a marble pedestal is a copy of a famous antique marble head in the Uffizi, Florence. The young beardless man turns to the left and looks upwards as though suffering mental or physical pain. The sculpture in the Uffizi, which belonged to the Medici from 1579, was long known as 'The Dying Alexander' due to a later inscription (‘Alessandro’) on its pedestal. However, there is no actual evidence that it was originally intended to represent the dying hero Alexander the Great.

The Roman historian Plutarch wrote that only the sculptor Lysippus was permitted by Alexander to make his portrait. But it is very unlikely that an ancient Greek sculptor, even Lysippus, would have created such a dramatic likeness. It also does not resemble known portraits of Alexander, such as the Azara Herm – a Roman marble copy of a Greek head of Alexander the Great -- now in the Louvre, Paris. The inscription 'Alessandro' was probably added when the head underwent significant restoration, especially to the back and to the hair, and reflects a desire to find in ancient sculptures illustrations of ancient history.

Once the Azara Herm portrait of Alexander the Great was discovered in Tivoli in 1779, the Uffizi head was no longer believed to represent him and its fame slowly declined. It has been suggested that the face is actually copied from the head of a young giant from the Gigantomachia of Pergamum – an ancient narrative sculptural frieze which is part of the Pergamon Altar now in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin.

Imperial porphyry is a notoriously hard material worked by only a few craftsmen in Florence and Rome and occasionally elsewhere (notably Paris) from the late sixteenth century onwards, reusing ancient columns, shafts and other fragments. The National Gallery's head may have been made in Florence in the seventeenth or eighteenth century. It is one of only a handful of sculptures in the collection.

Style: Baroque, Academic, Rococo, Neoclassical
This portrait bust of the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea Mantegna was made around 1880, and presented to the National Gallery three years later by the British collector Henry Vaughan.

The bust is made of plaster of Paris with a ‘bronzed’ finish. It is one of an edition of casts that were made of the high-relief bronze bust of Mantegna that serves as the artist’s memorial in his funeral chapel in Sant'Andrea, Mantua. The memorial was probably designed by Mantegna himself, who may have also modelled the bust and cast it in bronze. However, other artists -- including Mantegna's friend, the medallist, sculptor and goldsmith Gian Marco Cavalli -- have also been proposed.

The original bust is mounted before a red porphyry disc set within a decoratively carved circular marble frame. The eyes were said to have been originally inlaid with diamonds.

Style: Realist
This small roundel of the Archangel Gabriel comes from a polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) painted in Florence in about 1450. It was made for a side altar in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Pratovecchio. Other panels from the same altar are also in our collection.

This is half of an image of the Annunciation; the Virgin Mary is shown in another roundel on the opposite side of the altarpiece. Gabriel holds a lily, a traditional symbol of the Virgin's purity, and raises his hand in a gesture of blessing.

The Virgin Mary was extremely important in medieval Christianity. Episodes from her life were shown in many altarpieces, as altars were often dedicated to her. These two small roundels of the Annunciation would have been on either side of an image of the Assumption.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance