This part of the Gallery A display spans from the Middle Ages to the High Renaissance and includes paintings dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries. It encompasses works from all over Europe; from Germany and France, as well as from Italy and the Netherlands. Some paintings are grouped thematically under the key categories for this period, such as altarpieces, portraits and small-scale devotional works. Of particular interest are the 16th-century Venetian paintings representing musical subjects and a selection of Renaissance works from the workshop of the Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli.
Gallery A: Paintings 1250-1600
Paintings in this room
God tells Abraham to leave Haran and go to Canaan. He obeys, travelling with his whole household and goods (Genesis 12:1).The towers and walls of Canaan are just visible in the distance as God appears to the elderly Abraham in a burst of golden light. The young man in the turban beside Abraham is...
The unusual horn-shaped cap and sumptuous silk robes identify this man as a doge, the elected ruler of Venice. We can‘t be sure who he is, but he has been identified in the past as Doge Niccolò Marcello, who was in power briefly from 1473 to 1474. A medal (Bode Museum, Berlin) inscribed with Marc...
This altarpiece was made for the meeting room of the Florentine youth confraternity of the Purification of the Virgin and of Saint Zenobius, which was in the Dominican convent at San Marco.Saint Zenobius and Saint John the Baptist – the patron saints of Florence – are shown on the Virgin’s right-...
This graceful Virgin Mary seems to embody both motherly love and maternal sorrow. Her beautiful hands hold the Christ Child almost tentatively, as if to prevent him floating away. She gazes sadly at her son, and he too looks out with wary, hooded eyes, as if aware of his future.Mary’s halo is ins...
Two elegantly dressed couples have been making music on the banks of a small stream. The young man in the foreground pauses from playing his fiddle to watch the amorous couple on the other bank. The lady reclines beside her lover, and a lute and music lie abandoned on the grass. Music and playing...
The man in this portrait was once thought to be Gerolamo Casio, a poet from Bologna. He and Boltraffio knew one another and Casio even mentioned Boltraffio’s skill at painting in his sonnets.This attractive idea is now doubted, but there’s no question that the work is by Boltraffio. One of Leonar...
Portraits like this – of idealised women, seen in profile – were popular in fifteenth-century Florence. This picture is not by Botticelli but by his workshop, which was one of many that produced them. The women usually have fair hair, pale skin and rosy lips, as this was thought to be the most be...
The Virgin Mary stands with her infant son, Christ, in the corner of a large but sparsely decorated room. He is balanced on a small table, the only piece of furniture, but is dangerously close to its edge; a closed book further restricts the space available to him. The Virgin uses both hands to s...
Restored in 2018–19, this is one of the more significant paintings of the Virgin Mary to survive from the workshop of the Florentine Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli. The exposed breast with which the Virgin Mary is nourishing her infant son, the Christ Child, is central to the design of the...
The Virgin Mary kneels, her hands clasped in prayer. Her downward gaze meets that of her infant son, Christ, who is lying on the edge of her blue cloak, leaning against a bundle of straw. Saint John the Baptist, Christ’s cousin, looks down at him from behind. The scroll he holds bears a Latin ins...
Piero de‘ Medici (1416–1469) was the son of Cosimo ’Pater Patriae‘ (’father of his country‘), and father of Lorenzo the Magnificent. They were all members of the Medici, the leading family in Florence during the Italian Renaissance. Although Florence was a republic at the time, Piero was in effec...
This unidentified man is standing beside a virginal, which was a very popular household keyboard instrument in sixteenth-century Italy. He is shown half-length holding a pair of steel dividers – used to take measurements – which echo the splayed pose of his fingers against his black costume.The p...
The panels of this small triptych (a painting made up of three parts) are in their original frames, which are carved from the same boards as the panels. The central panel shows the Virgin Mary seated on an elaborate throne in a sort of loggia (open-sided gallery or room). On the left wing is an u...
In this small painting, the Virgin and Christ Child sit on an enormous and elaborately decorated throne in front of a distant landscape. Christ’s outstretched arms recall the Crucifixion, as do the cross and whip he holds.This was perhaps the work of at least two artists. Technical analysis revea...
This elegantly dressed young lady is Margaret of Austria, one of the most important female rulers of the Renaissance. The only daughter of Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, she was regent of the Netherlands from 1507 till her death in 1530. The half-blank coat of arms at the top of the arch i...
This young man with flowing hair is Philip the Handsome, son of the Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain, so-called because of his fair hair and attractive grey eyes. The painting is one wing of a diptych (a panel painting in two parts). The other, showing his sister, M...
A thin-faced man with a hooked nose gazes directly out at us. He wears a black hat and his dark grey garments are perhaps made of watered silk: an irregular swirling black pattern extends across both chest and the puffed shoulders. There are no indications of the sitter’s identity.Corneille de Ly...
A man with blue eyes and a brown beard – slightly reddish below his mouth – looks out at us from this small picture. We don't know who he is but his black hat, known as a biretta, and his clothing indicate that he is a priest or a lawyer. He may well have been an important person: Corneille de Ly...
A maze or rocky grotto looks out over a cloudy mountainous landscape and meandering river. A turbaned man plays a lute by torchlight as three others embrace bizarre hybrid women. One has a serpent for a tail, another has the face of a pig, a third has the head of a reptile. Two turbaned figures,...
As punishment for revealing the future to mankind, King Phineas of Thrace was blinded and had his food continually stolen by the harpies, who were half human and half bird. The story is told in the Argonautica, an epic romance written by Apollonius Rhodius during the third century BC.A naked woma...
Filippo Fasanini, who died in 1531, instructed the executors of his will to commission this altarpiece for his chapel dedicated to Saint Philip and Saint James in S. Domenico, Bologna. It is signed on the throne’s plinth: IERONIMVS. TREVISIVS. P.[INXIT] (‘Girolamo of Treviso painted this’).Filipp...
Saint Mary Magdalene is identifiable here by her halo and her emblem – the pot of ointment with which she anointed Christ’s feet. The pot seems to show scenes from classical mythology. On the lid, one woman carries another through water – perhaps the goddess Diana helping her mother across the st...
The Latin inscription in the top right corner names the female artist: CATHARINA. FILIA /IOHANNIS DE HEMES/SEN PINGEBAT. 1552. (‘Catharina, daughter of Johannes de Hemessen was painting [it]. 1552.’).We don't know the sitter’s identity but he was clearly a wealthy man. His belt has gold ornaments...
This portrait of an unknown husband and wife is unusually intimate. The costumes have been dated to the mid-1540s. It was rare at the time for a man to be depicted with his hand resting on his wife’s shoulder. It was also slightly unusual for a woman to be shown on her husband’s right-hand side,...
The dead Christ, wearing the crown of thorns and displaying his wounds from the Crucifixion, is supported by two angels. One of them gazes at him while the other looks at us for our response. The figures fill the entire image, focusing our whole attention on the body of Christ, his wounds and his...
This portrait was probably commissioned at the time of this woman’s marriage, probably by the family of her future husband. She is presented in the finest jewel-encrusted accessories: her headdress is sewn with pearls and gems in a fan pattern, and the pearl adornments of her transparent veil tic...
The identity of the tonsured friar portrayed here is made clear by the scene painted on the reverse of the panel, which records the execution of Girolamo Savonarola and his two companions. This took place in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence on 23 May 1498.Savonarola (1452–1498) was a Dominic...
The Christ Child sits on the lap of his mother, the Virgin Mary, and looks directly at us. He holds a little bird in his left hand. In many religious paintings Christ is shown with a goldfinch, a symbol of the Passion (Christ’s torture and crucifixion). The bird here is missing the typical red pl...
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 unidentified bearded man is depicted bust length, gazing obliquely into the distance. His right hand holds the edge of his black robe, revealing a small gold ring with a green stone on his little finger. He wears sober, unostentatious clothes, and a black skullcap with a large black hat.The...
This painting was once a portrait, but it was altered to represent a saint. The hair of the figure was originally completely different, her hand was resting on a different object and her dress was decorated with gold around the edges. Later, after the dress and background had been completed, she...
The saint in this painting carries a bishop’s crosier and wears the white habit of the Carthusian Order. The Carthusians were an enclosed Catholic religious order of monks and nuns founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084. Bruno was called to Rome by Pope Urban II, and while there founded a new hermit...
Christ stands upright with the support of his mother, the Virgin Mary. He holds a transparent crystal orb and is clutching his semi-transparent drapery, which hangs over one shoulder like a Roman toga. He is intended to look like a miniature Roman emperor, a pose which conveys his spiritual autho...
Three young ladies are making music in a landscape of meadows and lakes. They are dressed in expensive clothes made from voluminous quantities of sumptuous silk, damask, brocade and velvet. The costumes, with their particularly extravagant sleeves, and the ornamentally plaited hair of the lady on...
The inscription tells us that this is seventeen-year-old Stefano Nani from Auro painted by Licinio in the year 1528. Auro is a village in the Alps to the north of Brescia in Lombardy, which at the time was ruled by Venice.Stefano is presented as a pensive young man, gazing dreamily into the dista...
The design of this tender image of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child and an angel is derived from a picture by Fra Filippo Lippi, the Florentine painter and monk. It was a popular composition in Florence and there are numerous versions of it by different artists. The semi-transparent veil wit...
At the age of 12, Jesus was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem by Mary and Joseph, who became accidentally separated from him. They found him three days later debating learnedly with the theologians there (Luke 2: 41). This is the moment at which Christ first identifies himself as the son of God: ‘...
The Virgin and Child are seated on a throne in front of a cloth of honour in this large and highly decorative altarpiece. They are surrounded by saints, in a composition known as a sacra conversazione (‘holy conversation’). On the Virgin’s right are Saints John the Baptist and Gall, the patron of...
The panels in this triptych (painting in three parts) show a garden with fruit trees, cypresses and other, unidentifiable trees planted in careful rows. Daisies, buttercups, violets and lilies of the valley carpet the foreground.In the centre panel, we see an elaborate building filled with dazzli...
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...
The weeping Christ wears the crown of thorns; unusually, it still has some leaves on its stems. His hands are tied together with rope, but he holds a bundle of sticks in one and a long reed in the other. This picture is a simplified version of the figure of Christ crowned with thorns in the left...
A well-dressed young woman gazes out from this portrait. Her chemise seems to be embroidered in black and gold at the neck and cuffs. The golden beads among other whitish ones that hang from her girdle are probably a rosary, a devotional aid often used for prayer.We don‘t know who the woman is or...
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 –...
This was originally the top panel of the high altarpiece of Forlì Cathedral, the main panel of which is now in the Pinacoteca Civica, Forlì. The dead Christ in the tomb is supported by the Virgin (in blue), with Mary Magdalene and Saint John the Evangelist also appearing in the tomb. The patron s...
This portrait may depict Ghirardo Averoldi, a nobleman from Brescia in northern Italy. He regards us with a frown, and the solid triangular form of his body, swathed in his black silk and velvet costume, makes him appear stern and powerful. The large collar of the coat and the shape of the sleev...
This panel of Saint Bonaventure and one of Saint Louis of Toulouse, also in the National Gallery’s collection, are part of a series of nine paintings by Pordenone from a ceiling in the Scuola di S. Francesco ai Frari at Venice. The original arrangement showed the Four Evangelists on square panels...
This panel of Saint Louis of Toulouse and one of Saint Bonaventure, also in the National Gallery’s collection, are part of a series of nine paintings by Pordenone from a ceiling in the Scuola di S. Francesco ai Frari at Venice. The original arrangement showed the Four Evangelists on square panels...
Christ appears as Salvator Mundi, or ‘Saviour of the World’, with a crystal orb in his left hand and his right hand raised in blessing, its shadow falling across his breast. The orb, surmounted by a golden cross, symbolises Christ’s rule on earth. His direct gaze and frontal pose engage the worsh...
A richly dressed lady gazes out at us from this painting. We don't know who she is but the jewellery and fabrics she wears could only have been afforded by the exceptionally wealthy. The extravagance of her dress is comparable with that worn by royalty.She was perhaps unmarried: she faces right,...
A bright orange curtain is drawn back to reveal a young man standing at a window. He rests the fingers of his right hand on the windowsill, and seems to fasten the stole over his black cloak with his left hand. His head is turned to the side, gazing at something or someone outside the depicted sp...
The infant Christ throws his arms affectionately around his mother’s neck and smiles at us. But the Virgin Mary’s eyes are downcast, as though her thoughts are already on his future sacrifice.The painting probably dates from the early years of Raphael’s time in Rome. It is called the ‘Mackintosh...
Christ’s dead body is lowered gently into his tomb. Mary Magdalene and two other women mourn him; Saint John the Evangelist, who was present at the Crucifixion, kneels beside the Virgin Mary, his back to the viewer. The other men are Joseph of Arimathea, who offered his family tomb for the burial...
We don't know the identity of this girl, but she surely belonged to an important dynasty. Her large, rounded cheeks suggest that she is still quite young, but nonetheless she’s dressed in a stiff formal outfit: a ruffled collar peeks out from beneath a high-necked net bodice woven in alternating...
The Virgin Mary kneels and bows her head before the newborn Christ, while her husband Joseph sits behind her on a low rock. Three shepherds bow in worship to the left. Despite its small scale, the painting demonstrates Signorelli’s immense skill at drawing the human body in complex poses, coverin...