wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This picture tells a story told in the biblical book of Tobit (which is regarded as apocryphal by Jews and Protestants). The blind old man Tobit, a merchant and devout Jew, sent his son Tobias to the country of Media, near Assyria, to collect a debt. The family were exiles from Israel, living in Assyria. God sent the Archangel Raphael -- the winged figure on the left of the scene -- to accompany Tobias and his dog. Although he is shown here with wings, according to the text Raphael disguised himself as one of Tobias's relatives.

Tobias holds receipt of the debt, labelled 'ricordo', in one hand and a freshly caught and gutted fish in the other -- if you look closely, you'll see the red line of blood where its stomach has been slit. Raphael had instructed Tobias to catch and gut the fish, keeping its heart, liver and gall. Tobias gazes at the angel as though listening intently: according to the text, Raphael explained that these organs could be used as ointment to cure blindness and be burnt to drive away evil spirits. He holds the precious organs in a little box.

While on their journey the pair visited Tobias's cousin, Sarah. She had married seven times, but each time a demon had killed her husband before the wedding night. Tobias decided to marry her and end the curse. On the wedding night he burnt the organs which, as Raphael had foretold, drove the demon away. The book culminates with Tobias's return home, where he took Raphael's advice and cured his father's blindness. The artist expresses the figures' momentum by painting their draperies rippling in the wind behind them.

The quality of this picture ranges dramatically. Most of it seems to have been painted by an unknown member of Verrocchio's large workshop. For example, both figures seem to have the exact same left hand, probably copied exactly from a model book. The fish, however, is like a minute still life, its scales reflecting the light like shining armour; it appears to be the result of very close observation. It has been suggested that Verrocchio's pupil Leonardo may have painted the fish and the dog, which seem to have been added at the last minute -- if you look closely you can see how the grass and shrubs behind show through the fur and scales.

Tobias and Raphael's journey to Media was very popular in the late fifteenth century when devotion to the Archangel, known as Saint Raphael, was promoted by a number of confraternities dedicated to him.  He became known as the patron saint of healers and travellers. Many rich Florentines, who might have commissioned such works, shared Tobit's profession of merchant -- it's possible that an association with the charitable, honest and pious Tobit was desirable. The moral message could be disguised in the appealing imagery of a young man, an angel and a dog crossing a vast landscape.

Style: Early Renaissance
A vase of white lilies, a symbol of the Virgin Mary's purity, balances on a low wall, which surrounds a garden filled with wildflowers -- and divides the picture into two. The enclosed garden (or 'hortus conclusus' in Latin) was a symbol of Mary's virginity; it is found in many images of her, such as Benozzo Gozzoli's little picture of the Virgin and Child enthroned with angels.

The scene shows the Annunciation, when Mary found out that she would conceive a son, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost. The Archangel Gabriel, huge peacock-feather wings outstretched behind him, kneels in front of her to tell her the news. As Gabriel speaks, a small dove, the symbol of the Holy Ghost, flies towards Mary's belly: this is the moment of Christ's conception. It has been sent by God, whose hand we see appearing from a deep blue cloud that represents the heavens. A golden light emanates from a gap in Mary's pink dress and she bows her head towards it, in acceptance.

This picture comes from the Medici palace in Florence, where it most probably hung above a door. It was made as a pair, and the other panel, which shows seven Medici patron saints, is also in our collection. The Annunciation was an appropriate scene for a domestic setting: according to the accounts in the Gospels, the angel appeared when Mary was at home. Although she was not wealthy, Lippi has furnished Mary's house with elegant and rich furnishings to match the palatial setting. The bed behind her resembles contemporary Florentine furniture, and it is draped with a fabric that is embroidered with gold thread. Her chair, too, is draped with a golden damask fabric, like a throne -- an indication of her role as Queen of Heaven.

The marble walls are soft shades of apricot and pink, and the carving is in the classical style which was popular in Renaissance Florence. Below the vase, an emblem used by the Medici family is carved into the wall: two feathers encircled by a diamond ring. The immense detail with which Lippi has painted Gabriel's wings probably reflects the fact that peacock wings were also a Medici symbol in this period.

The Annunciation was an extremely popular subject in Florence. Like in many Italian cities, its feast, celebrated on 25 March, marked the first day of the calendar year. The panel might have hung over the door of the palace's study -- its ceiling was decorated with the signs of the zodiac and, therefore, the months of the year.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
At the centre of this painting is the Virgin Mary, who covers almost its entire height. She stands in front of a low marble sill, holding the infant Christ in her right arm and supporting one of his legs with her left hand. Her expansive blue cloak with green lining, worn over her red undergarment, seems to envelop the Christ Child, as if to provide protection; sadly, to no avail. He is plucking seeds from a pomegranate that has burst open. The fruit has been interpreted as a symbol of the Passion, its red juice recalling the blood Christ shed at the Crucifixion. It may be in anticipation of his future that Mary looks down on her son with what seems to be a mixture of worry and sadness.

Christ’s slightly older cousin, Saint John the Baptist, looks up in wonder. He wears his traditional camel-hair shirt and holds his reed cross, and clutches at the folds of his red cloak with both hands. A book lies open on the marble sill in the foreground, but its text is illegible. The vase with yellow flowers may allude to the Virgin, who was thought of as a vessel from which the Christ Child came. A mountainous landscape opens out behind the figures, and a towered city appears in the far distance, behind a group of tall young trees.

Small paintings of the Virgin and Child with the young Saint John the Baptist were an important source of income for artists working in fifteenth-century Florence. These works often decorated the chambers of their original owners, offering them visual aids for prayer and meditation. However, inventories from this period also show that such images could also be displayed elsewhere in the household.

This painting is among the earliest known works by Filippino Lippi, probably contemporary to his Adoration of the Kings. An illegitimate son of the Carmelite friar and painter Fra Filippo Lippi, Filippino is likely to have made this painting when he was still a member of the workshop of Sandro Botticelli, whose influence can be perceived here. But the painting also shows the promise of someone who would quickly establish himself as one of the leading artists in Renaissance Florence, whose work was widely appreciated among the highest ranks of society.

The Virgin and Child with Saint John stands out for the step-like arrangement of the figures, leading up diagonally from Saint John the Baptist, through to the Christ Child and towards the Virgin Mary, heightening a sense of geometry that is typical of Filippino. Such qualities must have appealed to Charles Eastlake, who acquired the painting for his private collection at a time when he, as the first Director of the National Gallery, was searching for early Italian paintings to enrich the collection. It was acquired by the Gallery after the death of his widow, Lady Elizabeth Eastlake.

Style: Early Renaissance
There's so much going on in these unusually shaped panels that it's hard to make out the story. Battles and parades, knights and nobles, horses, hounds, lions, bears and giants are crammed in a flowery Tuscan landscape, with roads and rivers winding through green hills and between medieval walled cities.Although it looks like a fairy tale set in fifteenth-century Italy, the story comes from the Bible, and tells how a brave shepherd boy, David, married a princess after defeating the giant Goliath. This is what is known as cyclical narrative, where events which took place at different times are shown in a single setting. The narrative starts on the left of The Story of David and Goliath, with David guarding his flocks, and continues -- more or less -- from left to right, to his battle with Goliath. The Triumph of David shows the triumphal procession bringing the giant's head to Jerusalem. On the far right there seems to be a betrothal scene: a group of richly dressed courtiers are gathered around a man and a woman who are being formally presented to each other. This could be David and Michal, daughter of the King of Israel whom David married, or the couple for whom the paintings were intended -- or perhaps a conflation of both.These paintings would doubtless have decorated a private room in fifteenth-century Florence and give us an idea just how sumptuous interiors in Renaissance Italy could be. They were probably spalliere, paintings set into the panelling, usually at shoulder height, above chests or seating. The detail, like the flowers in the grass at the front, was clearly meant to be examined close up. Although some of the materials have now darkened -- the silver of the knights' armour, the green of the plants and the blue of the sky -- and in places the surface of the paint is rather worn and some detail has been lost, they would originally have been brilliantly coloured and sparkling with gold and silver. The animals, in particular the bear, cheetah and lions, were beautifully painted and very naturalistic, and the punched and burnished gold must have shone in the candle light.Their iconography suggests they were made to commemorate a marriage, probably for one of the Medici, whose emblems appear on some of the knight's clothing. We know that Pesellino painted spalliere and cassoni for the family, and they were especially interested in the story of David: they commissioned several works showing the victorious David, including a bronze statue by Donatello that's still in the Palazzo Medici. The atmosphere of these paintings is also very similar to that of Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes in the Medici chapel.Two of Cosimo de' Medici's sons, Piero and Giovanni, married in 1448 and 1453 respectively; his nephew Pierfranceso di Medici married in 1456. If the paintings were made for a Medici wedding, these three are all possible options. Whoever they were meant for, the joyful, romantic subject matter would have been especially suitable for a young couple's bedroom.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
The Cumaean Sibyl is one of 12 pagan sibyls, or prophetesses, said to have foretold the coming of Christ.  In pagan legend they each take their name from their place of origin and have a particular prophecy associated with them. The Cumaean Sibyl, named after Cumae near Naples, predicted that Christ would be born to a virgin mother in a stable at Bethlehem.This is one of Guercino's finest late works, imposing in composition, rich in colour and dignified in pose and gesture. The noble figure of the Sibyl, finely dressed and wearing a turban and pearl-drop earring, dominates the composition. She is seated on a stone block and rests a book on a separate stone plinth. Her face turns to meet the gaze of a winged putto who props up a stone slab and gestures towards its inscription: ‘O LIGNVM BEATVM IN QVO DEVS EXTENSVS EST, SYBILLA CVMANA’. This translates as: ‘O blessed wood on which God was stretched out; Cumaean Sibyl’, referring to the wooden cross on which Christ was crucified.In Italian painting from the fifteenth century onwards, sibyls were commonly shown with books or scrolls (most famously in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling), as an allusion to the Sibylline Books in which their prophecies were recorded. Here, books are included in the foreground, at the putto’s feet, and in the Sibyl’s hands. The Cumaean Sibyl is referred to several times in classical literature, including in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Virgil’s Aeneid, and was one of the most commonly featured sibyls in Italian art. The sibyls became particularly popular subjects in the seventeenth century and Guercino, like Domenichino, painted numerous pictures of them throughout his career, especially in the late 1640s and early 1650s.The warm tones in this painting are achieved through Guercino’s use of an orange-brown ground, exposed and visible near the lower right corner of the stone tablet. The range of delicate colours is punctuated by accents of blue in the Sibyl’s cloak and hairband, and in the cloudy sky at upper left. Through his rendering of fabric, the artist has endowed the Sibyl with a great sense of monumentality. Her green stole is tucked into her bodice and winds itself around her shoulders and right arm, to rest on the cloak lying over her lap. Her bright, peach-coloured sleeve, whose folds are wonderfully modelled, draws our attention to the centre of the painting and our eye is led to the fine details of the Sibyl's dress, such as the embellished velvet band running across her neckline. The putto’s cloak, too, billows out dramatically behind him, further demonstrating Guercino's skill in articulating drapery.The painting was commissioned in 1651 by Gioseffo Locatelli of Cesena as a companion to Guercino's King David, now in a private collection. Before the canvas could be sent to Locatelli, it was seen in Guercino’s studio by Prince Mattias de' Medici, who convinced the artist to sell it to him instead. Guercino painted The Samian Sibyl with a Putto for the original patron as a replacement. That Guercino chose to produce a new composition rather than an identical copy is a testament to his originality as a painter.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This painting on panel, which has been attributed to the workshop of Fra Angelico, was evidently the pinnacle of an altarpiece.It has been suggested that it was above the central panel of Fra Angelico's polyptych painted for the church of San Domenico in Fiesole, Italy. The predella is in the National Gallery Collection. This panel is not of the same technical quality as the predella, although this may be accounted for by the fact that as a pinnacle it would have been high up and not easily visible.This painting is on loan from His Majesty The King

Style: Early Renaissance, Gothic
These two paintings -- the Adoration of the Magi and the Lamentation -- most likely come from a polyptych (an altarpiece made up of several panels) painted by Gerard David and his assistants in the workshop he set up in Antwerp in 1515.

Although we don't have any written evidence linking these paintings, they are roughly the same size, the figures are painted on the same scale and the horizon is at the same level in both. They have been together since at least the nineteenth century. The Lamentation is about 3 cm taller and wider than the Adoration of the Magi, and there are differences in how the panels are constructed, but this doesn't rule out their being from the same series. They probably came from a lost altarpiece showing scenes from the life of Christ. The backs of both have been planed down; it is possible that they were once painted and intended to fold over a central panel. Although we don't know where the altarpiece was, it was likely to have been in Antwerp, where the Adoration was probably copied in the mid-sixteenth century.

We can reconstruct the history of these paintings from the early nineteenth century onwards. Both have pink papers on the back inscribed 'King'. This might be Frederick Benjamin King, a grocer and sugar refiner who lived in Princes Square in the East End of London and who went bankrupt in 1829. They were first recorded in the collection of the German merchant Charles Aders, who put together one of the most significant collections of so-called 'primitives' -- early Netherlandish and Italian artists -- in England, also including Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?) and The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor.

By 1831 Aders' financial affairs were in chaos and in 1832 he tried to sell his paintings to the National Gallery. Negotiations came to nothing and the works by David were eventually purchased by the eminent surgeon Joseph Henry Green, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's literary executor. They were bequeathed to the Gallery by Green's widow Anne Eliza in 1880, in accordance with his wishes.

Style: High Renaissance
These paintings of a male donor and female donor -- probably husband and wife -- once formed the wings of a triptych (a painting made up of three parts). They kneel in front of their patron saints, Peter and Paul.  On the outsides are Saints Jerome and Nicholas, depicted in grisaille.

We don't know who the couple were, but their clothing was fashionable in around 1515 and they were evidently wealthy: the woman has an expensive rosary and a long train, and is showing off large areas of costly furs in an open display of wealth. Their clothes are very similar to those worn by Lieven van Pottelsberghe and his wife in two portraits in the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent. The man may be the same rank as Lieven, who was Reciever General of Flanders between 1509 and 1517.

The paintings seem to be the work of three artists, the most competent of whom drew and painted the donors. A second did the patron saints; the same artist, working in haste, or else a third, less talented, did the outside of the wings. All three were much influenced by Gerard David and were probably working in one of the larger Bruges workshops of around 1515.

Style: High Renaissance
In April 1483 Leonardo da Vinci and two Milanese painters, half-brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista de Predis, signed a contract to gild and paint a large, wooden, sculpted altarpiece recently completed by the Milanese sculptor Giacomo del Maiano. A new religious group, a confraternity formed for the devotion of the Immaculate Conception, commissioned the altarpiece; it would be the main focus of worship in their newly built chapel in the Church of San Francesco Grande, Milan.

The artists were commissioned to provide three paintings which would be placed within the structure of the altarpiece. These were of the Virgin and Child with angels, and two pictures showing angels making music. Leonardo tackled the Virgin and Child -- the central image, now known as 'The Virgin of the Rocks'. Ambrogio de Predis almost certainly painted the angel playing a lute, and when Evangelista died he appears to have enlisted his friend, Francesco Napoletano, to paint the angel in green playing a vielle.

The sculpted parts of the altarpiece are now lost, so we don't know exactly how it looked -- but a list attached to the contract gives us an idea of the sculptures, and the impression of a complex and elaborate structure. The main sculpture was of the Virgin Mary. She wore a necklace of gold, pearls and enamel, suggesting that she was very lifelike, and stood beneath a domed canopy. The angels playing musical instruments might have stood on either side of this statue. Leonardo's painting was the main image and was placed below the sculpture. The list also mentions carved narrative scenes 'of Our Lady', perhaps scenes from Mary's life. At the base of the altarpiece was another carving, possibly Christ as a baby in his crib.

Leonardo's picture in the National Gallery was painted to replace an earlier version that he had made for the altarpiece (the first is now in the Louvre, Paris). The composition of the Paris version is almost identical -- the only difference is the angel, who in the Paris version looks out at us and points towards Saint John the Baptist, interrupting the connection between the Virgin and Christ.

It is not clear why two versions were made. Surviving documents that date to the early 1490s tell us that Leonardo and Ambrogio de Predis were in dispute with the confraternity about payment for their pictures; they were asking for more money than originally agreed because the materials had turned out to be more expensive than estimated. There is no evidence to prove what happened next but it seems that Leonardo sold his picture elsewhere, having been unable to persuade the confraternity to pay him the extra required.

The style of our version suggests that it was begun in the early 1490s, shortly after the dispute began. When the French captured Milan in 1499, Leonardo left the city for Florence without finishing the picture. In 1506 the confraternity demanded Leonardo return to Milan to complete it within two years. He was finally paid in 1508.  The confraternity's chapel was destroyed in 1576, the altarpiece was broken up and parts were sold.

Style: High Renaissance
These two paintings, which are of similar subjects and identical in size, were almost certainly intended as pendants, or companion pieces, to be hung together. The men portrayed here are evidently poor -- their ragged clothing is roughly stitched together, one suffers from a swollen goitre on his neck and the other has missing teeth -- but the artist’s portrayal is entirely sympathetic. These men are full of character, their expressions lively and engaging. The loose, animated brushwork adds to their sense of immediacy.

The style and subject of these paintings are typical of Giacomo Francesco Cipper, who specialised in painting low-life scenes of beggars, street-sellers and vagabonds in Milan -- a genre in which another painter working in Lombardy, Giacomo Ceruti, later excelled.

Style: Academic, Baroque, Rococo
We are not certain of the identity of the sitter in this damaged portrait, although he may have been a Benedictine or Augustinian canon. His beard is short and he wears a black biretta and dark clothes lined with spotted fur, possibly lynx. The coat of arms in the upper right corner is the same as that on the ring on the sitter's index finger.

Two inscriptions are visible in normal light, and more clearly in infrared photographs: in the upper left corner D. ANDREAS; in the upper right AETATIS SUA 52, or possibly 42. The D seems to be short for 'Dom', an abbreviation of Dominus (lord), the title given to professed monks of various orders as well as to certain canons regular. The man's beard and clothing in this painting is similar to those worn by the Benedictine Jaspar de Bovincourt, who was made Abbot of St Peter's at Oudenburg, west of Bruges, in 1569.

The dark brown inscription on the arm of the sitter's chair is F Pourbus, although it has been altered -- perhaps in an attempt to create a false Holbein signature. This is therefore a signed portrait by Frans Pourbus the Elder, probably painted towards the end of his career. It  may be compared with the heads of the Hoefnagel Family (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels) and other paintings of around 1580. The chair appears in at least three other portraits by Porbus, and may have belonged to the artist.

This must originally have been a painting of exceedingly high quality: the paint is worked wet-in-wet; the fur is very skilfully painted and sgraffito is used (where a top layer of paint was scraped away to reveal the layer beneath), for example in the decoration around the upper left sleeve. The sixteenth-century art historian Van Mander reported that Porbus trained in Frans Floris' workshop, and Floris sometimes said of Porbus, 'There goes my master'.

Style: High Renaissance