Prince Albert and the Gallery

Prince Albert (1819–1861) shared an enthusiasm for art with his wife Queen Victoria. He was one of the first collectors in Britain to buy so-called primitive Italian and German painting.

Prince Albert had a keen appreciation of painting. His largest acquisition, however, came about by default. In 1847 he acted as guarantor on a loan for one of his relatives – Prince Ludwig von Oettingen-Wallerstein (1791-1870). As surety, Prince Albert was given a collection of German, Italian and Netherlandish paintings. When the loan fell through, Prince Albert acquired all 100 works.

Though this was not an act of connoisseurship, there were some high quality works among this collection including a triptych by Giusto de’ Menabuoi, and Pintoricchio’s Virgin and Child.

In line with his wishes, after Prince Albert's death Queen Victoria offered the collection to the nation. Twenty-five of these paintings were selected by the National Gallery. Three others are currently on loan from HM The Queen.

Prince Albert's collection at the National Gallery

Blessing Redeemer

Fra Angelico

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 Nat...

Not on display

Christ Crowned with Thorns

Workshop of Dirk Bouts

This small picture once made up a diptych (a folding painting in two parts) with another in our collection, the Mater Dolorosa. It was probably intended for private devotion: Christ’s pain was meant to inspire empathy in the viewer, who was encouraged to meditate upon his suffering as a means of...

Not on display

Mater Dolorosa

Workshop of Dirk Bouts

This small painting of the sorrowing Virgin once went with another painting in our collection, Christ Crowned with Thorns. They originally made up a diptych, a folding painting in two parts. It was probably intended for private prayer: the Virgin’s grief was intended to inspire empathy in the vie...

Not on display

The Virgin and Child

Workshop of Dirk Bouts

The Virgin and Child are shown as an affectionate mother and laughing infant. Christ holds an apple, alluding to the fruit with which Eve tempted Adam in the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, leading to the Fall of Man.Devotion to Mary was an important part of a great flowering of private rel...

Not on display

Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany

After Bronzino

This is a portrait of Cosimo I de‘ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, at the age of 40. It is based on Bronzino’s official portrait of the Duke of 1559, but is unlikely to have been painted by Bronzino or his assistants.Prior to Medici rule, Florence had been a republic. Cosimo was Duke of Florence f...

Not on display

An Augustinian Friar (?) Praying

Gerard David

A man seems to be kneeling in a doorway or a window frame, hands folded in prayer. We don't know his identity, but he seems to be an Augustinian friar. Members of the Augustinian Order, which was founded in the thirteenth century, took vows of poverty and lived a monastic life. In public they wor...

Not on display

The Quaratesi Madonna

Gentile da Fabriano

This panel formed the centre of an altarpiece commissioned by a member of the Quaratesi family for the high altar of San Niccoló Oltrarno, Florence. It was flanked by Saints Mary Magdalene, Nicholas of Bari, John the Baptist and George; the predella showed scenes from the Life of Saint Nicholas.T...

Gallery E

The Coronation of the Virgin, and Other Scenes

Giusto de' Menabuoi

This triptych – a folding picture in three parts – was most likely made for private contemplation and worship. The central image shows Christ crowning the Virgin Mary after her ascension to heaven. Orderly tiers of cherubim and seraphim (the blue and red winged creatures at the very top), angels...

Not on display

Three Saints

Stephan Lochner

Saint Catherine of Alexandria stands among the fragments of the spiked wheel on which she was tortured, which miraculously shattered during her ordeal. She holds a sword, the weapon that eventually killed her. To her left is Saint John the Evangelist, whose symbol of the eagle perches on a rock a...

Room 25

Virgin and Child

Hans Memling

The Virgin Mary, bareheaded and richly dressed, holds the naked Christ Child, who rests on a white cushion on a ledge. We are not sure whether the painting was once part of a triptych (a painting made up of three sections) or stood alone. The infant Christ could be blessing a donor in a panel on...

Room 26

The Virgin and Child in a Mandorla with Cherubim

Italian, Umbrian or Roman

The Virgin Mary tenderly supports the infant Christ in her arms. Gilded backgrounds like this derived from icon paintings produced in the Byzantine (Eastern Christian) Empire. By the time the picture was made, they had largely been replaced in Italian painting by landscape or architectural backdr...

Not on display

The Crucifixion

Quinten Massys

This is the aftermath of the Crucifixion. The soldiers are riding away, and only Christ’s followers are left. Christ hangs from the Cross, dead or near death. The Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist stand on the left, while Mary Magdalene clings to the foot of the Cross. On the left Joseph of A...

Not on display

The Crucifixion

Associate of Jan de Beer

This painting was probably once the centre panel of a triptych (a painting made up of three sections) showing episodes from the Passion (Christ’s torture and execution). The dead Christ hangs from the Cross, and three angels collect the blood from his wounds in chalices.On the left are the Virgin...

Not on display

A Female Head

Master of the Female Half-Lengths

A young woman with brown hair and plucked eyebrows gazes modestly downward. Her hairstyle is Italianate: her plaits are wound around the top of her head and are entwined with a semi-transparent scarf that falls across her right shoulder. She wears a semi-transparent ruched chemise and a blue over...

Not on display

Saint Christopher carrying the Infant Christ

Workshop of the Master of the Female Half-Lengths

According to legend, Saint Christopher was a giant, who was given the task of helping travellers across a river after he converted to Christianity. One day a child asked to be carried across, but Saint Christopher found him so heavy that he was bowed down with the weight. The child revealed that...

Not on display

Saint John on Patmos

Master of the Female Half-Lengths

Saint John the Evangelist is seated on the island of Patmos writing the Book of Revelation. He seems to have reached the twelfth of his 22 chapters, given the appearance in heaven of the ‘woman clothed with the sun’, and the red dragon with seven heads. They are floating in the sky at the top rig...

Not on display

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Master of the Female Half-Lengths

The holy family rest as they flee from Bethlehem to Egypt, trying to escape King Herod’s order that all boys under two be killed. Mary sits on a low wall that encloses a courtyard and a fountain. She has opened her dress and chemise to reveal her right breast, evidently to feed her son. Saint Jos...

Not on display

The Presentation in the Temple

Master of the Life of the Virgin

The priest Simeon is shown receiving the infant Christ from the Virgin Mary in front of an elaborate altar. The scene is based on a passage in the Gospel of Luke (2:22–40), which describes Mary and Joseph’s visit to the temple in Jerusalem for the rituals of Mary’s purification and of Christ’s pr...

Not on display

Saints Peter and Dorothy

Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece

Saint Peter clutches a Bible with a soft leather cover to his chest. In the same hand he holds two unwieldy keys – those to the kingdom of heaven, promised to him by Christ. Saint Dorothy holds only a tiny delicate flower to her breast, presumably plucked from the basket of blooms in her left han...

Room 25

A Young Woman Writing

After Jan Sanders van Hemessen

An elegant and fashionably dressed young lady is absorbed in writing a letter. She holds a quill pen. On the table next to her is a pen case, attached by brownish strings to a dark brown inkpot. We can‘t read what she is writing – the artist doesn’t seem to have intended it to be legible.We don't...

Not on display

The Magdalen

Workshop of the Master of 1518

Saint Mary Magdalene stands behind a stone ledge and holds her attribute – the pot of oil with which she anointed Christ’s feet. Behind her, a window opens onto a landscape; the cliffs and buildings on the left are a fairly accurate view of La Sainte-Baume, east of Marseille, where, according to...

Not on display

The Virgin and Child in a Landscape

Albert Cornelis and Associates

The Virgin Mary sits on the ground under a tree, breastfeeding the Christ Child. Behind her we see horsemen riding along a road and, on the right, Saint John the Baptist accompanied by a lamb. The composition is an echo of Robert Campin’s Virgin in the Apse.The Virgin’s head and hands are stylise...

Not on display

The Virgin and Child in a Landscape

Bernaert van Orley

In this small panel, the Virgin Mary sits under a tree and offers her breast to the Christ Child, who grasps it with both hands but turns away to look out towards the viewer. Although this is not a specific image of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt – it lacks Joseph, the donkey and the luggage –...

Not on display

Saints Mamas and James

Francesco Pesellino and Fra Filippo Lippi and Workshop

These saints come from a large pala (an altarpiece with a single, unified surface) which was sawn into pieces in the eighteenth century and later reassembled in the National Gallery. Look closely and you can see lines where the fragments were put back together. The altarpiece was begun by Frances...

Not on display

The Virgin and Child in a Landscape

Jan Provoost

The magnificently dressed Virgin Mary is seated in a garden, on a turf bench supported on planks of wood. The Christ Child is on her knee, playing with a whirligig. Pulling the string on the toy would make the part with sails fly upwards like a helicopter.Such benches seem to have been common in...

Not on display

The Virgin and Child

Pintoricchio

Pintoricchio painted a number of images of the Virgin and Child of a similar size to this one. Their scale, high level of detail and decoration, and the sweetness of the figures made them highly desirable as beautiful objects and as aids for worship in the home.This one offers a view through an...

Not on display

The Virgin and Child in a Garden

Style of Martin Schongauer

In this small painting, the Virgin Mary and infant Christ are seated in an enclosed garden (known in Latin as a hortus conclusus, it traditionally symbolised Mary’s virginity). She holds out a flower to her son – a ‘pink’, also known as a dianthus (meaning ‘flower of God’ in Latin). It was often...

Not on display

Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family

Swabian

The woman’s large white headdress, its calligraphic shape made up of stiff, angular folds, is striking against the dark background. Shading around the folds reinforces the sense of their depth, and the artist seems to want us to think that a fly, deceived by his illusion, has attempted to land on...

Room 25