Room 27

This small painting shows how Antonello revolutionised Venetian portraiture in the late fifteenth century: the three-quarter pose, dark background and strong lighting are all innovations from Northern Europe which focus attention entirely on the man’s face.Antonello’s skill at painting in oil ena...

Christ stares calmly out at us from the heart of this picture, his serenity a vivid contrast to the brutality of his tormentors. At the back are two soldiers, one about to force the crown of thorns onto Christ’s head. In front two men kneel in mock homage; one seems about to tear off Christ’s rob...

This apparently simple portrait of a young man was revolutionary in Italian painting. Until this moment, artists painted people either in profile view, so only half their face was visible, or by turning them three-quarters to face the viewer.Here, Botticelli paints the boy head on, mapping his wh...

Christ wears the rich cloak and the crown of thorns in which, according to the Gospels, he was dressed before he was crucified. But the wounds of the Passion (his torture and crucifixion) indicate that he has already died and been resurrected.Bouts brings Jesus’s torments vividly to life, showing...

The Virgin and Christ Child are seen as if at an open window, with the infant perched on the sill. Mary gazes lovingly at her son and offers him her breast; images of the Virgin breastfeeding emphasised Christ’s humanity and vulnerability.Small religious panels like this were used as an aid to pr...

The Virgin sits in front of a dilapidated stable with the naked Christ Child on her knee. Three men offer golden gifts – this is the Adoration of the Kings, a biblical episode imagined as a contemporary event. It’s a chilly winter day: Mary’s dress has fur-lined sleeves and Joseph has a thick-bel...

An elderly couple stare past each other – and us – in this astonishing study of old age. Although prosperously dressed, the pair seem disappointed: their mouths are turned resolutely down, their eyes dull and their jowls sagging. Although they overlap, each figure makes a self-contained triangle;...

A dark-haired man gazes to his right in a picture that must once have formed the right wing of a diptych or triptych (a painting made up of two or three parts respectively). He has not joined his hands in prayer, but his right is placed on his heart and he holds a rosary: he is clearly at his dev...

A solemn woman wearing a soft cap of dense white fur sits with a red squirrel in her lap and a glossy-feathered starling at her shoulder. Common pets in the fifteenth-century, these animals also have a symbolic meaning and serve as clues to the sitter’s identity. She is thought to be Anne Lovell,...

The Virgin Mary in her chamber is greeted by Christ, risen from the dead. He is accompanied by the multitude who followed him out of limbo. This painting belonged to Isabella of Castile, Queen of Spain, and was listed with 46 companion panels in an inventory in 1505. The panels – 27 survive in va...

An unknown man gazes past us into the distance. There is nothing to identify him beyond the scroll in his hand, which tells us his age: 38. His clothing is sombre – there is no conspicuous display of wealth and status – but it does suggest that he was a man of means.The man’s costume and the styl...

A pale young man, hands folded in prayer, is engaged in private devotions. This small painting was clearly the left wing of a diptych (a painting made of two parts) or triptych (a painting made of three parts). The object of his prayer would have been shown to his right, on a panel attached to t...

Saint John the Baptist stands in a kind of loggia (an open-sided gallery or room) with a tiled floor, wearing a hair shirt and holding his emblem, the lamb. This is the left wing of The Donne Triptych, painted by Hans Memling for the Welsh nobleman and diplomat Sir John Donne, probably in the lat...

Saint John the Evangelist holds a chalice from which a serpent escapes. He appears on the inside of the left shutter of a small triptych (a painting in three parts), the central panel and other wing of which are also in the National Gallery’s collection. They were painted for the Welsh nobleman a...

This is the central panel of a small triptych (a painting in three parts), probably commissioned by Sir John Donne in the late 1470s. In it, he kneels before the Virgin and Christ Child, facing his wife Elizabeth and one of their daughters. They are accompanied by their patron saints Catherine an...

We do not know the identity of this elegant young lady. Her clothes are not especially extravagant and she was perhaps a gentlewoman rather than an aristocrat.The painting is a good example of Rogier van der Weyden’s style of portraiture. A similar, slightly smaller portrait in Washington (Nation...