Italian, Milanese

In this almost life-sized portrait, an elegantly dressed lady holds a bunch of columbines. She is shown in profile, as was conventional for formal aristocratic portraits. It’s an unusual work: it’s painted in on canvas rather than wooden boards, the usual support for Renaissance paintings. It’s a...

Fourteen smartly dressed ladies kneel in prayer. They are female members of a confraternity (a quasi-religious brotherhood), praying to their patron saint; its men are shown in another painting in the National Gallery’s collection.We are not sure who this picture is by, but it is thought to have...

Nine men kneel in prayer, heads bare, hats in hands. Behind them stands a saint – we can only see his hand – wearing a brown garment (perhaps the habit worn by members of a religious order). It is possibly Saint Francis, who founded the Franciscan Order, presenting the men to the object of their...

This work is a badly damaged fragment of a fresco. It shows the Virgin holding the naked infant Christ on her knee. The Christ Child raises his hand in a gesture of blessing while looking down towards the left. The direction of his gaze and that of the Virgin suggests that he may originally have...