wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
David Teniers the Younger is best known today for his scenes of everyday life, but he was a versatile artist. He also produced history paintings, of which this is a masterly example. In a guardroom that looks more like a Flemish tavern than a prison, a crown of thorns is being placed on Christ's head. This humiliating moment, recounted in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, was one of a number of such episodes in the lead-up to Christ's crucifixion.

Christ is seated on a stone block, while a soldier standing behind him forcefully presses the crown of thorns onto his head. Three other men make obscene gestures, and a kneeling youth hands Christ a reed sceptre. Teniers used the most vivid colours for the clothes of the henchmen: red, green and blue tones together with bright white stand in contrast to the paleness of Christ's naked torso.

Two onlookers peer through a barred window at the upper right. Teniers could have taken this idea from Anthony van Dyck’s painting of the same subject (Museo del Prado, Madrid). In that composition -- which Van Dyck probably painted as a gift for Peter Paul Rubens -- there is also a bushy spaniel barking at Christ, and the positioning of the group of five watchmen is similar. However, Teniers’s boorish figures, clad in contemporary dress, are more reminiscent of his genre scenes. Various narrative details -- the still life in the foreground and the view of the adjacent room, where soldiers sit in front of an open fire -- help to bring the biblical scene to life, and make it more tangible. On the far right, a drawing of a laughing peasant is fixed to a wooden partition, a nod to the subject Teniers is best known for and functioning almost like a pictorial signature.

Christ crowned with Thorns is painted on copper, a material that Teniers often used as a support as its smooth surface lent itself well to his highly finished painting technique. The exceptionally large format of this copper plate suggests that the picture was a collector’s cabinet piece -- a reminder that Teniers painted for a clientele far removed from the roguish characters he so successfully depicted.

Style: Baroque
Erminio Soldera was born in Cappella Maggiore, near Treviso, and trained with Cesare Tallone (1853 -1919) at the Brera Academy in Rome. He produced frescoes and decorations for churches, but also painted portraits and landscapes, of which this is an early example.

Dense greenery dominates the foreground of this expanse of uncultivated, anonymous nature. The vegetation has been rendered in a close range of greens, with light shades laid over dark in the manner of oil sketches dating from earlier in the century. A few darker, prominent trees break up the skyline, while in the distance spikes of green push up into the sky. Soldera has joined two pieces of paper to make the wide panoramic format, popular with painters across Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Style: Realist
Monsieur Joseph Pivot (1804–1856), was a neighbour of Corot in Ville-d’Avray, where he owned a villa. He frequently rode his horse in the Bois de Fausses-Reposes, a wood where Corot also went to paint when he returned to the town to stay in the house formerly lived in by his parents. In this small, intimate portrait the rider seems to have been caught unawares. Seated on a dappled grey horse, set against the darkness of the wood, he turns to look at the viewer. His straw hat forms the brightest tone in what is a sombre setting.

In 1873 Corot’s friend and biographer, Alfred Robaut, related how the artist was painting a landscape at the time when his neighbour rode by. Struck by his sudden appearance, he asked him to stop so that he could make a quick sketch of him: ‘Around twenty years ago a certain M P[ivot], owner of a neighbouring estate to that of the Master, was passing by on horseback in the Ville-d’Avray woods in front of our artist, who, in the middle of doing a study, asked him to stop for a moment so that he could do a quick sketch of him.’ When Pivot died, Corot gave the painting to his widow.

Remarkably, technical analysis of this painting has indeed shown that the image of the man on his horse has been painted on top of an existing landscape. The pale blue paint of the original sky is visible under the thin dark green paint at the top left of the picture. The first landscape, which is very different from this one, and a more accurate depiction of the woods themselves, was wider in format, and the canvas was cut down by Corot once he was back in the studio. At this point he probably also finished off the woodland setting, adding the slender curved trunks of the silver birches over the dark green paint. While this equestrian portrait is unique in Corot’s work, he subsequently made a further related painting, The Horseman on a White Horse (about 1853–4, private collection) on which he based two clichés-verre (glass prints), The Little Horseman in the Wood and The Large Horseman in the Wood (both 1854).  Corot is probably the best-known maker of clichés-verre, which were popular in the nineteenth century. They were produced by drawing on a piece of glass, which had been coated to make it opaque, and printing the image on light-sensitive paper.

Style: Barbizon
It seems a service is about to begin in this chapel: the two candles on the altar are being lit. The altar itself is adorned with a painted altarpiece, on which the holy family -- Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child -- are just visible, painted loosely in blue and grey. An elaborate frame encloses the scene.

This church interior was painted in the Antwerp studio of Pieter Neeffs. The church that this chapel belongs to has not been identified, but the painter has convincingly evoked the atmosphere of a chapel’s interior in the evening candlelight. The numerous figures were painted by a different artist, and do not have the same level of finish as the architecture.

A painting by Pieter Neeffs and Bonaventura Peeters, also in the National Gallery's collection, shows a more elaborate follow-up to this scene, as a service is being performed: An Evening Service in a Church.

Style: Baroque
It seems as if these roses have been tossed almost carelessly into the wicker basket -- they tumble over the edge and onto the table -- but the disarray is artful. The subtle colours -- pure white, cream, pale apricot and pink -- have been carefully balanced to establish harmony, and the heads of the blooms turned in different directions to catch the clear, bright light and show the unique qualities of each flower.

Each twisted stem of the basket is clearly defined, but its deep brown colour seems to make it recede from us, establishing depth of space. This is helped by the dark red of the roses at the top and bottom of the arrangement, which also make the other flowers appear more brilliant. The lighter-coloured blooms seem poised and weightless, as if they are about to float away but are pinned down by the darker ones. The flowers are delicately painted and almost photographically real -- so much so that it's difficult to imagine they have any scent, although it was said that Fantin-Latour's studio was heavy with the smell of flowers when he was working.

The leaves are glossy and the petals have a multitude of textures, but these roses seem to have little to do with the natural world outside. They look too pristine and untouched, and although the bare mottled background brings out their colours, it isolates them as though in an empty room. But it is this very isolation that made the picture ideal for a heavily ornamented, bourgeois Victorian drawing room -- a moment to breathe amongst the expensive clutter.

Although commissions came in all year round, Fantin-Latour couldn’t always begin work straight away: depending on the season, there might not be any flowers to paint. Unlike the seventeenth-century Dutch flower painters that he admired, Fantin-Latour didn’t make sketches of a particular specimen when in bloom to incorporate a picture later on. He told his friend and mentor, the artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler, that ‘As soon as the flowers arrive when the good weather returns, I will do them’ -- meaning the promised pictures. He probably bought his bouquets at the market held at the Place St Sulpice in Paris on Tuesdays and Saturdays, just a short walk from his studio.

Faced with fast-fading blooms, Fantin-Latour had to work against the clock. One of his early teachers, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, had taught his innovative method for developing visual memory to Fantin-Latour, helping him to paint flowers that were past their best as if they were freshly picked. He also used commercially prepared toile absorbante (absorbent canvas) that sped up the drying process and allowed him to work quickly.

Style: Realist
Time and inexpert hands have not been kind to this picture. White flowers, difficult to identify with certainty, and heavy full-blown roses loom out of the darkness. A scarlet poppy turns its back to display ragged grey sepals. The flowers have been painted with skill, but the murky background has been considerably darkened with varnish and become badly cracked. Colours have changed, particularly greens that have deepened to a dusky blue.

The background, once much lighter, now adds to the impression that the painting, rather than a celebration of rare and lovely blooms, portrays only death and decay. Usually Dutch pictures of this kind show flowers in varying stages of their life span -- buds, half open, in full flower, dying -- as in Rachel Ruych's Flowers in a Vase. It’s sometimes thought that the artists were comparing the transience of the flowers to the transience of all life, including ours. But buds are few in this image, and the colours of those that there are have deepened beyond recognition.

A dark shadow stains one white flower, the other has tinges of yellow. The little blue convolvulus peeps out at the light but the rose petals are turning brown, getting ready to fall. There are no bright, clear colours of the spring flowers usually shown somewhere in such a painting -- like in Jan van Huysum's Flowers in a Terracotta Vase. In this picture we see only blood red, deep blues, misty greys and greens that make the flowers seem unreal, particularly the blue spray that completes the diagonal line running up from left to right. The steep angle of this line gives a sense of insecurity to the picture. If the single leaf just above the two white flowers hadn’t almost disappeared under the varnish, the composition would appear much more balanced.

As it is, the wild, disordered petals of flowers past their prime give a feeling that a sudden autumn wind has passed, leaving the roses nodding, and the single orange nasturtium at the base of the arrangement clinging on but swinging against the foot of the vase. No glistening drop of water trickles down a leaf, and the insect life often shown among the leaves and enlivening these pictures is missing.

These aren’t the only changes to the image. The picture was originally hexagonal. Four triangular sections were patched in at the corners and then roughly covered with black paint, leaving the joints clearly visible. Whether this was done at the same time as the varnished background we don't know.

Jan van Huysum is widely considered the finest of the Dutch flower painters, working at the time when pictures of rare blooms such as these were much in demand. He was celebrated internationally and also spectacularly successful financially. But the brush marks in this painting, though accomplished, aren't his style. We can see his name at the bottom right corner, but it's not in his handwriting and it's been added across the join in the panel after it was painted over -- so the picture's authorship must remain unknown.

Style: Baroque
Christ's hand is raised with his index finger pointing upwards, perhaps towards heaven, represented by the sunlit sky through the window. He holds a scroll inscribed in dark blue paint: EGO. SVM. LVX. MV̅D. meaning 'I am the Light of the World'. These are Christ's words in the Gospel of John (8:12). Christ goes on to promise that 'he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,' underlining his role as saviour. The painting is signed in partly legible letters on the plinth of the pillar: O. [for Opus, meaning 'work'] Paridis Bor...on.

Christ's face is closely observed and painted, as though it were a portrait from life. Bordone expresses his artistry -- expressed in his prominent signature -- through his flamboyant brushwork and Christ's animated pose. Christ's halo of golden light is painted with small dots and dashes of lead-tin yellow and ochre, and a similar technique is used for the gold decorations at the sleeves and neck of his robe, which flow over the fabric like staves of music. The hatching of the shadows in Christ's eyes and the thin horizontal lines of white crossing his irises, which give his expression life, are typical of Bordone's painting technique, and can also be seen in his Portrait of a Young Woman. Bordone's approach to the crinkled blue fabric lining Christ's cloak is similar to that worn by the woman in his A Pair of Lovers -- the folds are purely decorative and bear no relation to how the fabric might actually hang. The red of Christ's robe has faded, making the highlights and shadows now appear rather hard and abrupt.

Paintings of this type were kept in houses, especially in bedrooms. They were also, from an early date, displayed in churches. There is an almost identical version of this painting in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. The architectural background is extremely similar to that in Bordone's Portrait of a Woman with a Squirrel (Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Augsburg).

The painting was a gift to the National Gallery from Mrs Mary Wood and her brother the Revd G. Greenwood in 1901. It had been given to their father, the surgeon Mr Henry Greenwood, by a member of the Sicilian Embassy in thanks for his kindness to a Sicilian lady in 1819. The lady had been taken from her convent in Sicily aged 15 by an English army officer called Captain Soden, married and brought to England. By the time she met Mr Greenwood, Mrs Soden was widowed, diseased and starving with three children. Mr Greenwood went to the Sicilian Embassy to try to help her. The Embassy wrote to Mrs Soden's father, who was one of the principal nobles of Naples and Sicily, but he said that his daughter was dead to her family. However, the War Office was persuaded to give Mrs Soden a pension as an officer's widow.

Style: High Renaissance
In this small, oval-shaped portrait, an unidentified man turns his head slightly towards the viewer and looks directly out of the picture. His white shirt collar emerges from beneath a sober black jacket, which has small buttons running down the front. The reverse of the painting is inscribed with the date 1661, but this seems unlikely as the sitter’s costume is datable to earlier in the seventeenth century.

This small-scale portrait is painted on a walnut panel and was probably intended to be portable, particularly since its wooden support would have been more robust than canvas.

When the painting entered the National Gallery’s collection in 1906, it was attributed to Annibale Carracci, an artist whose portraits share a similar directness. More recently the work was considered to be by a Flemish artist, perhaps on the basis that it is painted on panel, but the style of the portrait is more likely Italian.

Style: Baroque, Academic
Thomas Howard (1585--1646), 2nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey, was a prominent figure in the reigns of James I and Charles I and, despite a chequered political career, was appointed Earl Marshal of England in 1621 and Lord Steward in 1640. He was also a distinguished patron and connoisseur of the arts, and amassed a huge collection of drawings and antique sculptures. Rubens met him on his visit to England in 1629/30, when Arundel was 44 or 45 years old. This portrait isn’t dated, but may well have been made during this period. We know that Rubens visited Arundel’s London house in August 1629, but since he is wearing a fur-lined winter coat, the sitting may have happened the following winter.

The artist seems to have admired the Earl’s connoisseurship and described him as 'an evangelist for the world of art and the great protector of our state'. He painted him three times. In two portraits -- one apparently a preparatory study for the other -- he is depicted as a man of action, dressed in armour and looking directly at the viewer (National Portrait Gallery, London; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston). In this painting, however, Rubens has revealed a more intellectual, reflective -- and perhaps even stern -- side to Arundel’s character. The pose is unusual for this period. He sits rather stiffly, looking away from the viewer with a focused expression. His face, free of shadow, is framed by a white collar, which contrasts strongly with his dark coat and the gloomy background. Although he is not formally dressed, his status is underlined by the medallion which hangs from the blue ribbon around his neck. It is the Lesser George, an insignia of the Order of the Garter, the highest order of chivalry.

While a date of 1630 would be consistent with Rubens's painting style of the time, Arundel does seem somewhat older in this portrait than in the other two; he is more puffy-cheeked and his hair is greyer. It has been suggested that the portrait may have been made later and may be intended to recall an engraving by Dürer of the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer (1524). It shows Pirckheimer’s head at exactly the same angle and, although Arundel’s torso is turned rather more to the right, the expressions on the faces of the two men are remarkably similar.

Arundel acquired the original copper plate of the Dürer portrait in May 1636 when he bought the Pirckheimer library, and it is certainly possible that Arundel could have sat for Rubens in Antwerp on his return from a diplomatic visit to the Holy Roman Emperor in Regensberg in the same year. No visit is documented, but a description of Arundel by Sir Robert Walker, who travelled with him, has survived and it is intriguingly reminiscent of this portrait. According to Sir Robert, Arundel 'was tall of Stature, and of Shape and proportion rather goodly than neat; his Countenance was majestical and grave, his Visage long, his Eyes large black and piercing; he had a hooked Nose, and some Warts or Moles on his cheeks; his countenance was brown, his hair thin both on his Head and Beard.'

Style: Baroque, Stuart
This sketch was painted during Constable's six-week visit to Salisbury with his wife and two children in the summer of 1820. He had been invited there to paint the Bishop's portrait and stay in the Bishop's palace. The Reverend John Fisher had become Bishop of Salisbury in 1807. One of the parishes he oversaw was Langham near East Bergholt in Suffolk, where Constable lived, and Fisher was also Chaplain of the Royal Academy.

The Bishop's nephew, Archdeacon John Fisher, was a canon of Salisbury Cathedral and Constable's lifelong friend. He had performed the Constables' marriage ceremony in 1816 and invited them to stay at Osmington in Devon with him on their honeymoon, where Constable painted Weymouth Bay: Bowleaze Cove and Jordon Hill. Constable wrote to the young Fisher of his ambitions to be a 'natural painter' and Fisher bought the first two of Constable's Stour Valley exhibition paintings, A View on the Stour Near Dedham (Frick Collection, New York) and Stratford Mill in 1819 and 1820.

Constable painted Salisbury Cathedral many times from different viewpoints. Some of these pictures were plein-air (painted outdoors) oil sketches like this one, while others were large pictures intended for exhibition. His last visit to Salisbury, for about a month in July 1829, inspired Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (private collection).

The view in this oil sketch is from the further bank of the River Avon, looking east across the meadows and the backs of houses in the Cathedral Close. The Cathedral's spired tower is visible among the trees. On the right is Leadenhall, where Constable and his family were staying with the Fishers. The warm buff-coloured ground shows through the paint of the sky, and has been left exposed in many places in the foliage and foreground. The flicks, dots and dashes of thick unblended paint, which make up the figures and reflections on the water, reveal the spontaneity and freshness of Constable's technique.

Twenty or so figures are enjoying the fine summer's day on the river meadows. Painted swiftly and in the open air, this sketch is on quite a large canvas. Constable would usually have worked outdoors on small pieces of paper or millboard that fitted in his paintbox lid, but at Salisbury he made use of Fisher's easels and large canvases. Constable's studio assistant, John Dunthorne, later made a copy of this oil sketch for Fisher.

In 1822, the Bishop commissioned Constable to develop another sketch 'in the palace grounds' into a large picture, which became one of Constable's best known works, Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds (Victoria and Albert Museum, London). The stormy sky and black cloud in Constable's original version displeased the Bishop, who did not share his nephew's enthusiasm for Constable's emotionally expressive landscapes. When the Bishop commissioned a smaller copy, he asked for 'a more serene sky.'

The National Gallery's sketch, Salisbury Cathedral and Leadenhall from the River Avon, remained unsold at Constable's death and was inherited by his daughter, Isabel.

Style: Romantic, Georgian
The identity of this brown-eyed woman who sits for what may be an engagement or marriage portrait remains a mystery. She is probably aristocratic and is clearly wealthy -- the many pearls strung around her neck and over her shoulders, and the two large tear-drop pearls of her earrings, are showily expensive, as are the gold-set precious stones in her hair and the large broach at her breast.

The portrait itself has been commissioned from an artist of some skill -- another testimony to the wealth and status of her family. In the nineteenth century it was attributed to Van Dyck, but is now thought to be a copy of a work by him, although no original has been traced. The style of her dress and its extravagant silk and satin wings suggests a date in the 1630s. A portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria of England by Van Dyck, dating to about 1637 (private collection), shows her in a similar costume.

Style: Baroque, Stuart
This is one of four paintings of angels and saints made to decorate a pair of shutters. It was common at the time they were painted for altarpieces to have shutters to embellish and protect them. The central image these shutters would once have flanked is now missing.

The Latin inscription on the plinth beneath the angel's feet says 'AVE REGINA' meaning 'Hail Queen'. When read with the inscription beneath the other angel's feet, the whole phrase is: AVE REGINA COELORUM ('Hail Queen of the Heaven'). This message would have been read when the shutters were open and it suggests that the missing central image was one of the Virgin crowned in the heavens.

The angels have features and expressions often found in Moretto's work. With their delicate faces and blond hair, they are very similar in appearance to Saints Cosmas and Damian in Moretto's altarpiece for the church dedicated to them at Marmentino, Brescia. Flickering touches of yellow are painted in tiny lines to suggest shimmering gold thread in the angel's robe. This is characteristic of Moretto's technique and can be seen in the gold on the cloak of the Virgin in the Adoration of the Shepherds in the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, Brescia.

The superior quality of painting of the angels is another indication that they were displayed on the insides of the shutters. Less attention would have been given to the paintings on the outsides.

Style: High Renaissance