Paintings on art route C
Travel from Venice to the English countryside and see paintings by artists including Bronzino, Canaletto, Gainsborough, Holbein, Hogarth, Monet, Seurat, Turner and Van Gogh.
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(Showing 30 of 303 works)
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence in 1682–85. The overall theme of these highly elaborate, showpiece frescoes is the progress of mankind by means of Wisdom and Virtue....
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in 1682–85. Ten of the modelli are in the National Gallery’s collection, and this one represents one of the four Cardinal Virtues. First identifie...
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in 1682–85. Ten of the modelli are in the National Gallery's collection, and this one represents one of the four Cardinal Virtues. First identif...
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence in 1682–5. Ten of the modelli are in the National Gallery's collection, and this one represents one of the four Cardinal Virtues. Fi...
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in 1682–85. Ten of the modelli are in the National Gallery's collection, and this one represents one of the four Cardinal Virtues. First identif...
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in 1682–85. Ten of the modelli are in the National Gallery’s collection, and this one corresponds to the group in the centre of the ceiling of the...
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence in 1682–85. This scene corresponds to that painted on one of the two short walls, above the entrance to the grand Galleria.It shows Mi...
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence in 1682–85. The overall theme of these highly elaborate, showpiece frescoes is the progress of mankind by means of Wisdom and Virtue.T...
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence in 1682–85. The overall theme of these highly elaborate frescoes is the progress of mankind by means of Wisdom and Virtue.This scene c...
This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of twelve that Giordano made in preparation for the ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence in 1682–5. This scene corresponds to that painted on one of the two short ends of the grand Galleria, in which Giordano presents a...
Jupiter, the ruler of the gods, is seated on a cloud, his attribute of an eagle with thunderbolts in its beak beside him. He is embracing the goddess Minerva, his daughter. The scene is witnessed by a gathering of the gods of Olympus, clearly shocked by what they see.Mercury, messenger of the god...
Although we do not know his name, we can tell a lot about Baldung Grien’s mature sitter from the details of his costume. The large fur collar of his coat, the jewel on his cap and the two gold chains around his neck show off his wealth. The longer chain bears two badges: the Virgin and Child with...
The Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist stand in Christ’s red marble tomb supporting his lifeless body. He is partially covered by a burial shroud, but the spear wound on his side is visible. The Virgin mourns her son, wiping her eyes with her veil. John the Evangelist places his hand to hi...
In 1 Corinthians 13, Saint Paul discusses three traits that would become known as the theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. He believed that charity, an expression of the love of God and of one’s neighbour, was the most important. Here, the inscription ‘CHARITAS’ at the top of the picture...
The subject of this painting has been much debated, but it’s generally thought to show an imagined view of a past and primitive society. Cranach made a number of similar paintings from 1527 to 1535. Since the twentieth century it has been assumed that the origin of the subject lies in a classical...
This painting, which shows Saints Christina and Ottilia, was part of a multi-panelled altarpiece made by Cranach in 1506, shortly after he was appointed court painter to the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich the Wise.Saint Christina of Bolsena was a third-century virgin martyr. When she renounced her...
Saint Genevieve, born in the fifth century, is the patron saint of Paris. She was a nun, and helped protect the city from attack from the Huns and the Franks. Here, she holds the candle that miraculously relit after the devil blew it out while she was praying alone one night.Saint Apollonia was a...
The story of Saint Paul’s shipwreck on the island of Malta is described in Acts (28: 1–6), and Adam Elsheimer has taken advantage of the biblical description to portray a night scene: ‘And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, becau...
Christ is shown crouching in the river Jordan as Saint John baptises him, pouring water over his head. An angel and two cherubs carry a red drapery to wrap around Christ after baptism. The sky has opened up to reveal the intense light of heaven where the bearded figure of God the Father is surrou...
This portrait was made to hang with one of a woman by the same artist (Oscar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur), possibly to commemorate the couple’s engagement or marriage. This seems likely as both are shown with flowers associated with marriage: the carnation or pink held by the man was part of...
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,...
This elegant young woman is Christina of Denmark, the youngest daughter of King Christian of Denmark. In 1538, King Henry VIII of England was looking for a fourth wife, after the death of Jane Seymour the previous year. As Henry’s official court artist, Holbein was sent to Brussels to capture the...
Jean de Dinteville, the man on the left, is shown on his second diplomatic mission to England on behalf of Francis I, King of France. To the right is his close friend, Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. This portrait was painted at a time of religious upheaval in Europe. Although the pope had re...
The subject of Christ bidding farewell to his mother, the Virgin Mary, as he heads to Jerusalem to face his arrest, trial and death was very popular in southern Germany. This is a fragment of a larger painting, which has been cut at the right edge – only Christ’s hands and part of his long crimso...
The demure young woman in this portrait is Susanna Stefan of Nuremberg. The picture may well have been painted around the time of her marriage to Wolfgang Furter, probably along with a pendant portrait of her husband. A damaged inscription gives her age as 18 and a date in the 1560s; the coats of...
This scene is set in heaven, and Rottenhammer has managed to convey its vast scale even in this small space: rows of angels, saints and prophets fill every inch of the painting, and the more distant figures are painted very faintly to create a feeling of expansiveness.At the top, surrounded by a...
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 Three Kings have arrived to worship the newborn Christ. The Virgin Mary presents the baby, who has a bright halo of light around his tiny head, to the kneeling king, who takes the child’s small foot in his hand in order to kiss it. Spranger has positioned the two other kings around the mother...
In the fields beside a broad winding river labourers scythe grass to make hay, while a shepherd takes advantage of the shade of a large tree to shear a sheep. A woman with a large tray of fruit on her head is perhaps on her way to the town opposite to sell her produce at market. Meanwhile, aristo...
A man travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked by thieves who stole his clothes and left him for dead. A priest and a Levite saw the injured man but both passed him by. A Samaritan bound the man’s wounds, put him on his own mule, and carried him to an inn, where he left money for the man...
Christ arrives at the temple to find it full of money-changers and traders. Christ says, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them’ (Matthew 21: 12–15).Jacopo Bassano has depicted bo...
While carrying his cross, Christ stumbles and falls. One of Christ’s executioners raises a fist to strike him and another pulls him by a rope around his waist. In the distance is Calvary, the barren hill with two crosses where Christ will be crucified. The Virgin follows her son and wipes her tea...
A young couple sit on the grass in a shady glade. The woman’s hair is unbound, and her dress disturbed. In one hand she holds reed pipes, with the other she either restrains her lover or encourages him to move the crimson cloak over her lap. A naked, winged cupid crowns them with a wreath. A wood...
Christ’s hand is raised with his index finger pointing upwards, perhaps towards heaven, represented by the sunlit sky through the window. He holds a scroll inscribed: EGO. SVM. LVX. MŪD. meaning ‘I am the Light of the World’ (John 8: 12). Christ goes on to promise that ‘he who follows me will not...
A young woman, wearing a crimson robe and pearl necklace from which a gold cross is suspended, stands in an imaginary architectural setting. An opening into what appears to be a brightly lit courtyard reveals a precarious, twisting flight of stairs. A man in a dark costume stands at the top, appa...
A black eagle soars into the clouds with a naked youth clutched in its talons. In Greek mythology, Jupiter was infatuated with the handsome youth Ganymede, whom he abducted in the guise of an eagle and carried away to the home of the gods, Mount Olympus, where he was made their cupbearer.The sole...
The story of Eurydice and Aristaeus is told by the Roman poet Virgil. In the far distance Orpheus, Eurydice’s husband, charms wild animals with his music. Three nymphs gather flowers, unaware that the shepherd Aristaeus is pursuing Eurydice. She is bitten by a snake as she runs away. Identifiable...
Saint Jerome kneels against a rocky ledge in the wilderness contemplating the crucified Christ. Savoldo was particularly admired for his depictions of dawn and dusk and the dramatic lighting effects they produced. The painting is signed on the rock below the open book: ‘Giovanni Girolamo of Bresc...
After supper with his disciples, Christ rose and began to wash their feet (John 13:2–17). When Peter refused to allow this, Christ replied that if Peter would not allow him to wash his feet then he had no place with him. Peter then asked Christ to wash his hands and head as well, but Christ said...
Vincenzo Morosini (1511–1588) was a powerful Venetian official from one of the oldest, proudest and richest families of Venice. He was a Knight of the Golden Stole, a Venetian order of knighthood represented by the embroidered stole he wears over his shoulder.He observes us with a shrewd and slig...
Saint George plunges his lance into the jaws of the dragon which, according to legend, inhabited the lake outside the city of Lydda in the Holy Land. He has arrived just in time to save the princess, who had been presented as a sacrifice to the creature. The dead body of one of the dragon’s earli...
The Three Kings have come to visit the infant Christ in the stable where he was born. They bring gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and have journeyed from the East (Matthew 2: 10–12). The stable at Bethlehem is attached to the ruins of a great classical building with a triumphal arch in the...
Saint Nicholas lived in the fourth century and was a bishop of Myra, on the southern coast of modern Turkey. His relics were taken from Myra to Bari in Italy in 1087 and remain there today, which is why he is known as Saint Nicholas of Bari. He is the model of our ‘Santa Claus’ because of a lege...
This is one of Veronese’s earliest works, painted when he was about 18, probably for a noble patron in Verona. The lighting from the right suggests that it was made for a specific location, perhaps the side wall of a chapel.The painting’s subject has been the matter of much debate but it is now b...
Helen or Helena was mother of the first Christian emperor, Constantine. She dreamed that an angel revealed to her the location of the cross on which Christ was crucified and urged her to travel to the Holy Land to find it. She dug up three crosses and, by testing their healing power, was able to...
Alexander the Great, the Macedonian emperor, visits the distraught family of King Darius III of Persia, who he has defeated in battle. Darius’s mother Sisigambis mistakes Alexander’s friend Hephaestion, who wears plate armour and an orange cloak, for the victor. Alexander comforts Sisigambis, who...
In Roman mythology, the princess Europa was abducted from the coast of Tyre by the god Jupiter, who had transformed himself into a bull. We see her mounting the beast in the foreground and being carried away towards the sea at the lower left. Baby cupids throw fruit from the trees while the amoro...
Elderly Saint Elizabeth looks down over the Virgin Mary’s shoulder at her son Saint John the Baptist. The Christ Child removes a garland of flowers from his head, symbolising innocence or childish pleasure. He grasps the reed cross held by the infant Saint John, who wears his camel-skin cloak and...
The date 1514 is just visible on the letter carried by the sitter, although the words are illegible. The inscription in the parapet reads, in primitive French, ‘who loves well is slow to forget’. The sitter wears the Maltese Cross of the Order of Saint John. In 1514 Franciabigio was working for t...
The sitter is almost certainly Girolamo Benivieni (1453–1542), a significant Florentine literary and political figure. Initially one of the intellectuals surrounding the cultured Lorenzo de' Medici, who effectively ruled Florence, he fell under the influence of the Dominican preacher and reformer...
This portrait is one of the earliest and largest known examples of a painting on tinned copper, and the only portrait. The subject is commonly identified as Cardinal Giacomo Savelli (1522–1587), who was made a cardinal at 16 and became Vicar General of Rome in 1560. There is a smaller version of...
This portrait of the careworn Pope Julius II (1443–1513) is usually dated to the one-and-a-half-year period during which he wore a beard. He grew it in 1510 as a token of mortification while recovering from a serious illness brought on by the loss of Bologna to the French, and vowed not to shave...
The unknown man in this half-length portrait proudly displays an eight-pointed silver cross suspended from a black cord round his neck, which identifies him as a Knight of the Order of Saint John. His left hand clasps a sword. The pose points to the twin aims of the Order: religious and military...
This is the earliest of very few known portraits by Rosso. It was painted in Florence, while he was in the workshop of Andrea del Sarto. It reveals something of Rosso’s eccentricity, particularly in the strange spiky fingers, the curiously abstract style and the characteristically swift way of wo...
The Virgin Mary is seated with her cousin Saint Elizabeth and their sons in a rocky landscape. The infant Christ reclines on his mother’s lap, resting against her arm and laughing mischievously. This is a reduced version of the ‘Tallard Madonna’ (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) signed by A...
The lady in the picture is shown with the attributes of Saint Agatha, the third-century Sicilian martyr who was reported to have been tortured for rejecting the marriage proposal of the Roman governor. A dish with Agatha’s severed breasts and the pliers used to remove them are depicted on the rig...
This is one of a series of four paintings by Veronese that concern the trials and rewards of love, although their precise meanings remain unclear. The compositions are designed to be seen from below, so we know the pictures were intended for a ceiling or a series of ceilings.A couple are united a...
This is one of a series of four paintings by Veronese that concern the trials and rewards of love, although their precise meanings remain unclear. The compositions are designed to be seen from below, so we know the pictures were intended for a series of ceilings.Cupid drags a man in military cost...
Given the title Scorn in 1727, this is one of a series of four paintings by Veronese that concern the trials and rewards of love, although their precise meanings remain unclear. The compositions are designed to be seen from below, so we know the pictures were intended for a ceiling or a series of...
This is one of a series of four paintings by Veronese that concern the trials and rewards of love, although their precise meanings remain unclear. The compositions are designed to be seen from below, so we know the pictures were intended for a ceiling or a series of ceilings.A naked woman with he...
An elderly man in a lynx-lined jacket looks up from the large book he has been reading. He sits at a table covered with a Mamluk carpet, on which a gilded clock and two letters rest.The letters are both inscribed identically in Italian: ‘To the most Reverend Monsignor Giuliano with the most honou...
Giovanni Agostino della Torre was a distinguished doctor and citizen of Bergamo. He had taught at the University of Padua, and the costume he wears is official or academic dress. In 1510 he was elected prior of Bergamo’s College of Physicians, an office he held until his death.The texts on the tw...
A sumptuously dressed young woman holds a drawing of the Roman heroine Lucretia. The story of Lucretia, who lived in the early sixth century BC, is told in Livy’s History of Rome. Prince Sextus Tarquinius crept to Lucretia’s room at night and raped her. She told her father and husband, who were u...
Lotto wrote in his account book that he gave a painting on 23 September 1547 to ‘Giovanni della Volta, my landlord’. He describes it as ‘a painting with his portrait from life and that of his wife with two children, altogether comprising four figures’. The portrait may have been painted in lieu o...
No other Renaissance painting of the Virgin and Child with saints shows the naked infant Christ sitting on a pillow on a coffin. This unique addition indicates Christ’s acceptance of and conquest over death. Meditation on Christ’s death encouraged understanding of his suffering for humanity’s red...
This is the earliest surviving example of a life-size, full-length portrait on canvas or panel painted in Italy. We are not certain of the sitter’s identity, but he may be Gerolamo II Avogadro of Brescia (who died in 1534). He was the father of Conte Faustino Avogadro, who is shown in a portrait...
This lavishly dressed sitter, wearing a coat lined with lynx or snow leopard fur, is the Brescian nobleman and humanist Fortunato Martinengo (1512–1552). Ancient gold and silver coins and a bronze oil lamp in the shape of a foot on the table allude to his scholarly interests, and perhaps also to...
This portrait was long known as ‘Il Cavaliere dal Piede Ferito’ (‘The knight with the wounded foot’). But the brace supporting the man’s left foot suggests he was suffering from foot-drop, a fairly common disorder caused by the failure of the ankle muscles. The way in which his plate armour has b...
This dark-haired man with his striking ginger beard is said to be an ancestor of Count Lupi of Bergamo. The picture is typical of Moroni’s bust-length portraits of the 1560s. The sitter’s body, truncated by a marble parapet, is turned at a sharp angle to us and his eyes meet ours with a direct, a...
This portrait is unusual among Moroni’s works in that the sitter doesn‘t look out at us but gazes to the right, apparently lost in thought. He is identified by the letter he holds (a common device in Moroni’s portraits and others of the time), addressed to him as: ’The most reverend gentleman, Lu...
The traditional Italian title of this portrait, ‘Il Gentile Cavaliere’, means ‘the well-born gentleman’. The prominent sword, a symbol of gentility, and the books suggest that he is a man of action as well as learning. He holds a letter addressed ‘al...Sig’ (To Lord), but the name is now illegibl...
The portrait has long been known as ‘La Dama in Rosso’ – the lady in red. Moroni especially favoured pink or orange-reds. Here he has complemented the colour of the dress in the pinky-orange circles of Verona marble set in the floor. The sitter’s clothes are made of the most luxurious materials a...
This portrait has long been known as ‘L’Avvocato‘, meaning the lawyer or counsel in Italian. The sitter’s air of well-paid theatricality and his supercilious regard, as though he is summing up evidence, may have suggested this title. It might also derive from a misreading of the folded letter in...
An unidentified man regards us with a look of affable irony, his eyebrows raised. His chain mail sleeves and tunic would have been worn beneath plate armour, suggesting that he engages in some form of military activity. Similar costume is worn by noblemen in other portraits by Moroni.The sitter’s...
A soberly dressed man turns to look at us, his arm leaning on a large red book with gilded corner pieces and a central boss. Although the Latinised name ‘Leonardus Salvaneus’ was added to the portrait later, this may be a true record of his identity.The inscription on the ornate book translates a...
This is one of Moroni’s most famous paintings. The dress and the style of the painting suggest that he made it late in his career, around 1570.The cloth merchant or tailor looks up at us, interrupted from his work. His cream and red costume contrasts with the black fabric marked with chalk lines...
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...
A thin-faced man kneels in prayer, surrounded by three saints. This is Bernardijn Salviati, illegitimate son of a Florentine merchant, and canon of the Collegiate Church of Saint Donation in Bruges. The saints are, from left to right: Martin of Tours, with the beggar he gave his cloak to on the r...
Christ is stretched on the cross on which he is to be crucified – he looks straight at us to invite our sympathy. At his feet, two soldiers haul on ropes to pull his legs straight as another hammers an iron nail into his feet. A fourth knocks a nail into his right hand.His pale skin and nakedness...
Christ’s body has just been brought down from the Cross and is being prepared for burial – the square door to his tomb is visible in the rock face on the right. His mother embraces him tenderly, while Mary Magdalene anoints his feet. Another woman washes his wounds with water from a brass basin w...
A bearded man gazes out intently from this painting. We don't know who the sitter is, but the cut of his beard and the fashion of his hat and clothes suggest a date towards 1530. The fact that both his doublet and gown are lined with fur probably indicates that the portrait was painted during the...
A young girl, her clothes sewn with hundreds of pearls, gazes out at us. She seems to be playing with a golden object made of concentric rings. This is an armillary sphere, a celestial globe showing the movement of heavenly bodies. Its interlocking circles are echoed in the decoration of her clot...
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...
This large altarpiece is crammed with peasants, animals, angels and richly dressed kings and courtiers, come to worship the infant Christ, who sits on his mother’s lap in a palatial but ruined building.Jean Gossart has signed the painting on the hat of Balthasar, the king on the left, and on the...
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...
Catharina van Hemessen is the earliest female Flemish painter for whom verifiable work survives – we can see her name here in a Latin inscription in the top right corner. We don't know who the sitter was, but she was evidently wealthy. Her shirt, visible at her neck and wrists, is ornamented with...
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...
Two strikingly ugly men in extraordinary clothing are seated at a table in a panelled interior. One writes in a ledger, the other – his features contorted into a sneer – grasps at a pile of coins. Documents, some of them legible, are piled on a cupboard behind the pair.Marinus van Reymerswale and...
This must be one of the most striking studies in ugliness in Western painting. An elderly woman with a very short nose and an exceedingly long upper lip rests one hand on a marble parapet. Her skin is pimply and wrinkled, and she seems to have lost her teeth. In spite of her hideous appearance, s...
This paintings shows the Virgin as Queen of Heaven: she sits on a gilded throne and two angels hover above her, about to place an extraordinarily delicate crown on her head. The throne is decorated with red and green enamel or glass, and rests on the dais of a small Gothic church. The infant Chri...
Stratford Mill was the second of the six monumental paintings of the Stour landscape Constable exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1825, a group that includes The Hay Wain (National Gallery, London).Stratford Mill was a water-powered paper mill (now demolished) on the River Stour near...
A boy has paused from the thirsty work of herding sheep at noon to lie flat on the bank of a pool and drink its cool water. This vision of a Suffolk lane in high summer was painted in January to March 1826 in Constable’s studio in London. The lane winding into the cornfield is based on Fen Lane,...
The view is of the millpond at Flatford on the River Stour. Flatford Mill was a watermill for grinding corn, operated by the Constable family for nearly a hundred years. It still survives and is about a mile from Constable’s birthplace at East Bergholt, Suffolk. The house on the left also survive...
In 1759 Gainsborough moved to the fashionable spa town of Bath, where he established a very successful portrait-painting practice and remained for 15 years. He painted this portrait of Dr Ralph Schomberg, aged about 56, in Bath around 1770.Gainsborough consulted various doctors during his years i...
Gainsborough painted this portrait of William Hallett (1764–1842) and Elizabeth Stephen (1764–1833) shortly before their marriage on 30 July 1785. The couple are shown arm-in-arm on a morning walk with a Pomeranian sheepdog. The style of the portrait draws on the work of earlier painters Watteau...
A horse-drawn cart trundles along a woodland path on the way to market. Two boys and their dog walk alongside its giant wheel, while two girls sit perched on top of the produce. Carrots spill out of a basket, and turnips, potatoes and cabbages are loosely piled in. The older girl raises one arm,...
These are the four Graham children. Their father was Royal Apothecary to George I and George II. Thomas, in his gilded baby carriage adorned with a bird, had already died when Hogarth was working on the picture. The crossed carnations (funeral flowers) beside him are a tender reminder of death. A...
This informal and striking portrait of the politician Peniston Lamb (1770–1805) shows off the precocious powers of Sir Thomas Lawrence at the start of his career.The 'gentle-hearted and engaging’ Peniston Lamb was the Member of Parliament for Newport from 1793 to 1796 and the Member for Hertfords...
‘The Archers’ is one of a small number of outstanding portraits from the early part of Raeburn’s career and was probably painted in about 1789 or 1790, when the subjects were in their late teens. Robert and Ronald Ferguson became members of the Royal Company of Archers in 1792 and 1801 respective...
Lady Anne, 2nd Countess of Albemarle, is approaching 60 in this portrait. She is the widow of William-Anne Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, with whom she had 15 children, although only four sons and two daughters survived childhood. She holds a shuttle and is engaged in ‘knotting’ – a pastime invol...
This portrait shows Captain Robert Orme (1725–90) at the age of 31, during the war against the French for supremacy in the North American colonies. Reynolds painted it on speculation in the hope of selling it or displaying it to gain more work.Orme was aide-de-camp to General Edward Braddock, com...
Reynolds portrays Banastre Tarleton (1754–1833) aged 27, in action as commandant of the British Legion cavalry in the War of American Independence. Tarleton was famed for his reckless bravery and savagery, as well as for his vanity. He later became MP for Liverpool and defended the slave trade, o...
This full-length portrait is of Thomas Lister, who became the 4th (and last) Baron Ribblesdale in 1876, when he was just 22. He was a Liberal peer, a lord-in-waiting at court and a Trustee of both the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery.Plans to paint Lord Ribblesdale in formal hun...
One of the most important British paintings of the eighteenth century, Whistlejacket is probably the most well-known portrait of a horse. It is also widely acknowledged to be George Stubb’s masterpiece. The Arabian chestnut stallion had won a famous victory at York in 1759, but by 1762 had been r...
A cross-channel ferry (a packet), fully laden with passengers and flying a British flag, is approaching the port of Calais. Around it, small French fishing boats (‘poissards’) head out to sea. The water is rough and dark storm clouds gather, although a shaft of sunlight breaks through to illumina...
As with many of Turner’s paintings that were never exhibited in his lifetime the title of this picture was not his choice, but was decided on some 50 years later. We can’t be sure that it shows the north Kent seaside town of Margate, but the white cliffs just visible on the horizon recall other v...
In contrast to many of Turner’s paintings – often full of activity, grand architectural settings, dramatic weather and dazzling effects of colour and light – this painting looks almost empty. The only figure is a barely visible young boy with a shrimping net over his shoulder, who wades in from t...
Zoffany has portrayed Mary Oswald at the age of about 50. Probably born in Kingston, Jamaica, she was the only child of Alexander Ramsay, a Glasgow-born merchant who settled in Jamaica, acquiring plantations there and in the South American colonies. In 1750, she married Richard Oswald, a Scottish...
John Plampin is portrayed here aged about 25. The portrait was probably painted around five years before he inherited Chadacre Hall and the manor of Shimpling, Suffolk, in 1757. Gainsborough shows Plampin on Plampin land. The church tower in the background, though brushed in with only a few touch...
This unfinished portrait of Thomas Gainsborough’s youngest daughter, Margaret (1751–1820), playing a theorbo (a kind of lute) unites two particularly personal aspects of the artist’s life and career: his deep affection for his family and friends, and their shared passion for music.The Gainsboroug...
This portrait of Mr Robert (1725–1806) and Mrs Frances Andrews (about 1732–1780) is the masterpiece of Gainsborough’s early career. It has been described as a ‘triple portrait’ – of Robert Andrews, his wife and his land.Behind Mr and Mrs Andrews is a wide view looking south over the valley of the...
This is the earliest known self portrait in oil by Gainsborough, and the only known one of him with his family. He sits with his wife, Margaret, and the little rosy-cheeked girl is probably Mary, their short-lived first daughter. It is likely Gainsborough began it before Mary’s burial on 1 March...
The two little girls in this unfinished portrait are Mary and Margaret, Gainsborough’s daughters by his wife, Margaret Burr, and their only children to survive infancy. Mary was baptised on 3 February 1750 and Margaret on 22 August 1751. Mary was given the name of the couple’s first daughter, who...
This portrait of Gainsborough’s daughters is likely to have been painted in Bath a year or so after the family moved there in late 1759. Mary appears to be about ten or eleven years old, and Margaret about eight or nine. Margaret leans her forehead back against her sister’s cheek as she holds the...
This is the first in Hogarth’s series of six paintings titled Marriage A-la-Mode. They were painted to be engraved and then sold after the engravings were finished.The Earl of Squander is negotiating the marriage of his son to the daughter of a rich Alderman of the City of London. The Alderman’s...
The third scene in the series of six paintings by Hogarth titled Marriage A-la Mode is set in the consulting room of the French doctor M. de la Pillule. Viscount Squanderfield is accompanied by a sickly looking little girl and a woman who is probably the girl’s mother and madam.The child stands b...
The fourth scene of Hogarth’s Marriage A-la-Mode takes place in the wife’s bedroom. Now a Countess, she is following the aristocratic French fashion of receiving visitors as she finishes getting dressed. A coral baby’s teether hanging from the back of her chair indicates that she has become a mot...
This is the fifth scene of Hogarth’s series of six paintings titled Marriage A-la-Mode. After the masquerade, the Countess and her lover Silvertongue have taken a room above the Turk’s Head – a Turkish baths, or Bagnio. The scene is set at night by firelight; the Countess’s hooped underskirt, wha...
This is the final scene of Hogarth’s series of six paintings, Marriage A-la-Mode. The wretched Countess, dogged by the scandal following Silvertongue’s arrest, trial and sentence to death for the murder of her husband the Earl, has returned to her father’s house in the City of London.On receiving...
Hogarth certainly painted this sketch from life, and although he may never have known the girl’s name, this is defiynitely a portrait of an individual. For at least a century before and after Hogarth painted The Shrimp Girl, most of the travelling sellers of shellfish in London were women, usuall...
This painting depicts an episode from the Old Testament: the Queen of Sheba embarking on her journey to see King Solomon in Jerusalem. Crowned and dressed in red, the Queen descends the steps. The meeting was often painted, but it was unusual to depict the Queen’s embarkation. The soft warm light...
According to an inscription on a tree stump in the centre, this painting shows the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca described in the Old Testament book of Genesis. The couple dance with tambourines, surrounded by other figures reclining and enjoying the festivities. The flat landscape and expanse of...
Turner’s painting of the North African city of Carthage, founded by Dido, its first queen, was inspired by Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid. The figure on the left dressed in blue and wearing a diadem is Dido herself, visiting the tomb that is being built for her dead husband, Sychaeus. The man in...
It is low tide in the early morning and fishermen unload their catch from a boat beached high and dry on the shore. Some people enjoy a meal. Others prepare the catch for sale. This human activity contrasts with the stillness of the glassy sea which, like a mirror, reflects the hazy sunlight. The...
This is a very early work by Bernardo Bellotto, the talented nephew of the influential Venetian artist Canaletto. It was painted in around 1738, when he was only about 16 years old and working in his uncle’s studio in Venice. By this time Bellotto was creating his own versions of some of Canalett...
We have a magnificent view of the Grand Canal in Venice during the annual regatta, which was held on 2 February and attracted large numbers of visitors each year. All eyes are on the one-oared gondolas racing up the middle of the canal. Just right of centre two craft swing around the bend, tilted...
This painting shows the inside of the famous rotunda (demolished in 1805) at Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea. Ranelegh opened in 1742 as one of London’s most prestigious pleasure gardens, and its main attraction was this vast circular building in which fashionable society could attend balls and liste...
This intimate view of Venice, weatherbeaten and dilapidated, is one of Canaletto’s masterpieces. In the early morning sun, workmen chisel away at pieces of stone. Everyday life continues around them: a mother rushes to comfort her crying child, watched by a woman on the balcony above.This square...
Gondolas glide across the water, passing fishing boats which direct our gaze towards the mouth of the Cannaregio Canal, Venice’s largest waterway after the Grand Canal.The Ponte delle Guglie (‘bridge of the obelisks’) spans the water. We can just make out the tiny silhouettes of people crossing i...
People are hard at work on boats beside the small island of San Pietro in Castello, the eastern part of Venice. While the nearby district of San Marco was popular with tourists, as it is today, this quieter corner of the city was largely a working-class neighbourhood. Its residents sailed between...
Looking across the basin of San Marco, this vast view captures the scale and splendour of a ceremony taking place along the waterfront. Boats carrying spectators and animated gondoliers surround the gold and red state barge or Bucintoro, its upper deck crowded with figures. Every year on Ascensio...
Beneath a sky of swirling cloud and warm sunlight, we take in a view of the Doge’s Palace, one of the best-known buildings in Venice. It overlooks a promenade known as the Riva degli Schiavoni and the basin of San Marco.Canaletto has given the scene a sense of tranquillity and calm. In the foregr...
Canaletto’s sweeping view takes in everyday life on the Grand Canal. A stout helmsman stands aboard a finely decorated passenger barge to the left, while fishermen draw their nets in the centre. A boat carrying two women seems about to collide with one of the fishing vessels.Across the canal to t...
The Venetian Arsenal, a fortified shipyard and armoury, had been celebrated as a symbol of the Venetian Republic’s domination of the Mediterranean sea trade since the twelfth century. Its ornate gateway is decorated with statues of Greek and Roman gods; standing guard is the lion, a symbol of the...
Guardi delighted in capturing the charm of his beloved Venice, and here he has given it a soft, powdery appearance and dreamy atmosphere. Trade is the focus in the foreground – the basin of San Marco and the quayside is a hive of activity. Lively brushstrokes evoke the bustle of the city at work,...
The huge dome of the church of S. Maria della Salute dominates the entrance of the Grand Canal. Just in front is the Dogana da Mar (Customs House), built in the 1670s and shaped like a ship’s bow. Above its entrance is a weathervane in the form of Fortune, a personification of the Venetian Republ...
A crowd watches as state dignitaries and foreign ambassadors emerge from the church of San Rocco on the right of this painting. They have just attended a mass in honour of Saint Roch as part of the saint’s feast day, which was held in Venice every year on 16 August to celebrate his role in bringi...
In this altarpiece, Pittoni has depicted both the Nativity (the birth of Christ and his adoration) and the Trinity (God the Father, Christ and the Holy Spirit) – an unusual, but not unique, combination. It was painted around 1740, though we don‘t know for which church it was commissioned.Saint Jo...
This painting shows Rinaldo, a Christian knight who has been enchanted by the Muslim sorceress Armida. Looking at his own reflection in a magic shield given to him by one of his companions breaks the spell, and they help Rinaldo escape.This scene is taken from an episode in Torquato Tasso’s Jerus...
Within a walled garden, a man wearing a striking blue costume and ornate necklace catches the gaze of a woman holding a jar. A young boy stands just behind her, carrying a spear. Beyond the wall we glimpse treetops, and birds fill a bright sky.This picture is part of a series of four decorative p...
Two men stand huddled together. They wear stunning robes and headdresses made of sumptuous fabrics, both ‘oriental’ in style (from the Eastern Mediterranean). Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s lively outlines and visible brushstrokes emphasise the flamboyant sleeves and folds of the clothing. Hints of...
Two men in turbans are seated under a tree that provides little shade. One has his back to us; the other shows off his glorious costume, a bushy moustache giving him extra character. He clutches a jar and looks across the scene, though his eyes are hidden by his headwear.Depictions of people in ‘...
Aeneas, prince of Troy, dressed here in an orange cloak, left his native city and arrived with his father, son, and companions on the island of Delos, home of the sun god Apollo. Anius, the King of Delos, dressed in white, gestures to an olive and palm in the centre of the painting, two trees sac...
A sandy path meanders through a landscape of dunes towards distant hills and mountains. An old man in blue with his back towards us occupies the foreground, a sack and water bottle lying beside him on the ground. He seems to be watching a younger man who bends to scoop water from a pool with a po...
A country track leads from the left foreground between two outcrops of tree-covered rocks, around a limpid pool and towards the distant mountains. In the foreground a man wearing a classical tunic rests by the side of the track. He looks towards a second man in the middle distance, who ties his s...
This is one of two paintings originally commissioned as a pair by Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, in June or July 1772. However, concerned that the King was slow to pay, Vernet instead sold the pictures to the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India...
On the banks of a wide meandering river, men and women are catching fish. Vernet has used the brightly lit woman in red and the jutting tree as devices to draw our eye into the composition. A man with a rod and a basket of fish sits next to the river with his back to a large mossy rock. His dog h...
This Italian coastal scene bathed in soft sunlight is influenced by the port scenes of Claude, though much of the effect in Vernet’s painting depends upon its picturesque human detail. Two fashionably dressed ladies have been brought down to the shore by a Hungarian hussar, who is drawing their a...
This is one of a pair of seascapes, originally commissioned on behalf of the King of Poland, that the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India) bought from Vernet in 1773.Originally known as ‘Tempête’ (Storm), it depicts a rocky shoreline buffeted by a v...
Women combing their hair, or having it combed, often appear in Degas’s work, and this painting is one of his boldest treatments of the subject. A maid, wearing her servant’s uniform, combs the hair of her seated mistress, who is not yet fully dressed. Pulled back by the force of the strokes, the...
This painting shows Lake Keitele in central Finland. The zigzag pattern on the water’s surface is a natural occurrence caused by the interaction of the wind with the lake’s currents, but it is also intended to evoke the wake created by Väinämöinen, the poet-hero of the Finnish saga Kalevala, as h...
One of Gauguin’s favourite paintings was Cézanne’s Still Life with Compotier, Glass and Apple, (1879–80, Museum of Modern Art, New York), which he acquired for his own collection around 1880.This still life is a homage to that picture, and repeats many of its elements: the fruit, the pottery, the...
Van Gogh painted several versions of A Wheatfield, with Cypresses during the summer of 1889, while he was a patient in the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Paul de Mausole, in the village of St-Rémy in the south of France. A first version, which he described as a study, was painted on site in late J...
In late 1883 Van Gogh moved to the town of Nuenen in North Brabant, in the south of the Netherlands. His arrival there marked the beginning of a highly productive period that was to culminate in his first major painting, The Potato Eaters of 1885 (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam).This picture belongs...
Van Gogh painted this patch of meadow when he was a patient at the psychiatric hospital at Saint-Paul de Mausole, near the village of St-Rémy in the south of France. While at the hospital he made a number of sketches and paintings that look down at small areas of meadow or undergrowth.Although th...
This painting of a simple chair set on a bare floor of terracotta tiles is one of Van Gogh’s most iconic images. It was painted in late 1888, soon after fellow artist Paul Gauguin had joined him in Arles in the south of France. The picture was a pair to another painting, Gauguin’s Chair (Van Gogh...
Greta Moll was a sculptor who, along with her German husband Oskar Moll, was enrolled in Matisse’s art school, which he opened in 1908. She had previously been a student in Berlin where her portrait had been painted by the German artist Lovis Corinth. On being shown a photograph of that portrait,...
In 1884 Pissarro settled with his family in the village of Eragny. He painted a number of views of this meadow which is planted with small trees still surrounded by their protective cages. It is late afternoon and the long shadows thrown by the trees radiate out in a fan shape towards the left co...
This is one of 14 views of the Boulevard Montmartre in Paris that Camille Pissarro painted in 1897. These include the boulevard seen in snow, rain, fog, mist and sunlight, and in the morning, afternoon, at sunset and at night. The picture is the only example of a night painting by Pissarro.Pissar...
A tiger crouches low in thick jungle foliage, its back arched and teeth bared. It is not entirely clear what is happening: is the tiger cowering from the flash of lightning, or is it stalking prey?Surprised! was the first of around 20 ‘jungle’ paintings that Rousseau produced, which are among his...
This cool, elegant painting explores the quality of light on water – how it moves, how it reflects and, towards the base of the picture, how it glows. The clouds are hardly reflected in the water: it seems as if the light has slipped under them to illuminate the vast, still stretch of almost tide...
This small panel may be linked to Seurat’s earliest sketches and ideas for Bathers at Asnières (1883–4), although it is not normally included in the 13 sketches which have been tied to that painting.The carefully organised geometry of the scene, which divides the picture into distinct sections, c...
This large picture was Seurat’s first major composition, painted when he had not yet turned 25. He intended it to be a grand statement with which he would make his mark at the official Salon in the spring of 1884, but it was rejected.Several men and boys relax on the banks of the Seine at Asnière...
Of the small panels in the National Gallery’s collection related to Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières, this oil sketch on wood is perhaps the one most closely connected with the final painting. Unlike other sketches, which concentrate on atmospheric effects or the landscape, Seurat’s focus here is alm...
This is one of the earliest studies for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte of 1884–6 (Art Institute of Chicago), and was very likely painted on location. As this sketch was painted in the morning, the sunlight and shadows are the reverse of other studies and of the final painting itself, which shows the...
Seurat produced many oil sketches and drawings as studies for his monumental painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte of 1884–6 (Art Institute of Chicago). Many of these concentrate on the landscape but others, including this one, focus on the scale and position of figures within the final picture.He...
This is one of four paintings Seurat produced in 1890 near the town of Gravelines, a small port on the northern French coast between Calais and Dunkirk. Positioned on the sand dunes of Petit-Fort-Philippe, we see the shore in the morning light after the receding tide has left a broad expanse of o...
This panel was most likely painted in 1885 and relates to a medium-size canvas, The Seine at Courbevoie (now in a private collection in Paris). Seurat may have painted it before he decided to produce a finished picture of this particular view of the river, or it may be a preparatory study.The ver...
This is the only sketch for Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières that includes a rainbow, which was painted over the sky once the paint had dried. Although perhaps a rather contrived image, the mottled sky suggests Seurat may have seen a rainbow. It is evidence of his attention to particular effects of l...
The island of La Grande Jatte and the views from it across the river Seine were a rich source of pictorial subjects for Seurat during the 1880s. He was especially attracted to this location, in part because of the pictorial forms and structures it offered, such as the horizontal of the river and...
This young woman seated in a garden is thought to be a dancer and model who we know only as Gabrielle. She appears in two other pictures by Toulouse-Lautrec.Although Toulouse-Lautrec worked mainly as a graphic artist and printmaker, and is perhaps best known for his posters advertising venues suc...
This is a painting of sheer animal power. Brilliant white light builds up the turbulence and excitement of the scene. Rosa Bonheur has made the convulsion of the muscles and the flying manes almost tangible, capturing the rearing, plunging animals and the strength and dexterity of their handlers...
Boudin started off painting seascapes, but he found a niche in the 1860s producing small beach scenes. These showed well-to-do holidaymakers from Paris and further afield who arrived at the fast developing resorts of Trouville and Deauville to sample the health-giving benefits of seabathing and t...
In a warm and dark room, Courbet’s rich, ripe apples seem to glow as if in firelight. The heavy earthenware bowl lined with pale blue slip seems almost too small for the weight of the fruit piled into it. Among them is a single pomegranate, squeezed in at the base of the heap.In 1871 Courbet was...
Turbulent grey clouds roll across the sky. The lake beneath it is calm, but a storm threatens. It’s evening, and a tiny sailing boat in the distance is little more than a smudge on the horizon against the vivid orange and gold of the dying sun. Soft red reflections streak the surface of the water...
Honoré-Victorin Daumier (1808–1879) often used Miguel de Cervantes’s comic novel Don Quixote as a source for paintings and drawings. These always feature Don Quixote himself, who is usually accompanied by his faithful companion, Sancho Panza. This picture probably depicts the incident when Don Qu...
In AD 8 the Roman poet Ovid, author of the poem Metamorphoses, was banished for life by the Emperor Augustus to the port of Tomis on the coast of the Black Sea. At that time, this region was inhabited by the Scythians, nomadic warrior-tribes who originally came from the area now known as southern...
In August 1874 Manet began work on a large picture of the Brasserie de Reichshoffen, where he was fascinated by the skill of the waitresses. While working on the picture, he radically altered his plans and cut it in two, completing each half separately. This snapshot view of the cafe is the right...
Eva Gonzalès (1843–1883), Manet’s only formal pupil, was a successful artist and a regular exhibitor at the Salon. This portrait was probably started in February 1869 and involved numerous sittings. It was finally finished in March 1870 and shown at the Salon the same year.Manet had painted other...
Ferdinand Maximilian was enthroned as a puppet emperor of Mexico in 1864 with the support of Emperor Napoleon III of France. However, Napoleon III reneged on his military support. Captured in May 1867 by nationalist Mexican and Republican forces, Maximilian and two of his generals were executed b...
During the summer of 1869, Monet and Renoir painted together at La Grenouillère, a slightly raffish resort on the river Seine some 12 kilometres west of Paris. It had become a popular weekend retreat from the city during the 1860s.Monet made several oil sketches at the resort, including this pict...
In 1871 Monet moved with his family to Argenteuil, a suburb north-west of Paris. During his six-year stay there he painted around 200 pictures of the town and its surroundings. This picture is one of 18 Argenteuil canvases that record the snowy winter of 1874/5. The figures trudging along the roa...
This painting is one of a dozen views of the Gare Saint-Lazare that Monet painted in early 1877. He had known the station since his childhood, and it was also the terminal for trains to many of the key Impressionist sites west of Paris.One of the less finished paintings of the group, it is the mo...
Monet was captivated by London’s fog during his first stay in the capital from 1870 to 1871. Later in life he told the art dealer Rene Gimpel: ‘Without the fog, London would not be a beautiful city. It’s the fog that gives it its magnificent breadth.’ This misty composition is anchored by carefu...
This painting was almost certainly exhibited with the title The Lake in the Bois de Boulogne at the Fifth Impressionist exhibition in 1880 together with another picture by Berthe Morisot, In the Bois de Boulogne. The two paintings show the same two women (possibly professional models) who wear id...
This is one of 12 surviving pictures that Camille Pissarro made while in self-imposed exile in south London from late 1870 to mid-1871 during the Franco-Prussian war. Perhaps the first picture he painted while in London, it is one of the more rural scenes of the group and is similar to landscapes...
This wooded hillside, called the Côte des Bœufs, was close to Pissarro’s home in the hamlet of L’Hermitage, near the market town of Pontoise, where he lived for most of the time between 1866 and 1883.Although Pissarro was a leading Impressionist, this painting signals his move away from the fleet...
Pissarro and his family moved to Louveciennes in the spring of 1869, and he may have painted this picture shortly afterwards, or possibly in the spring of 1870. Only 30 minutes west of Paris by train, Louveciennes was an important location for early Impressionism, as it was one of the small towns...
Although dated 1874 on the canvas, Sargent most likely painted this study of a shaded veranda the following year at Saint-Enogat in Brittany. He spent the summer of 1875 there, when he was just 19 years old. The fluid brushwork shows the influence of Impressionism, a new way of painting, particul...
Constable painted Salisbury Cathedral many times from different viewpoints. Some of these pictures were oil sketches made outdoors like this one, while others were large pictures intended for exhibition. This sketch was created during Constable’s six-week visit to Salisbury in the summer of 1820....
This view is of Bowleaze Cove in Dorset looking west from Osmington. The Jordon stream trickles over the sand, with Furzy Cliff and Jordon Hill beyond. Thick clouds scud across the bright winter sky as the Downs slope to the sandy cove and sea. Constable suggests the waves rolling in to the beach...
This is the third in a series of four panels illustrating the different times of day that Corot painted for his friend, fellow artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. It is evening and colours are at their richest. Nearest to us, a mysterious figure is wearing what appears to be a dark brown monk’s hab...
This is the first in a series of four panels illustrating the different times of day that Corot painted for his friend, fellow artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. Two tall trees with full foliage on the left of the panel are offset by two smaller trees on the right. Corot’s use of trees on either s...
A rare example of a night scene by Corot, this is the last in a series of four panels illustrating the different times of day that he painted for his friend, fellow artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. As in Morning, we see a single figure, probably a man, accompanied by a dog. There is a sense of a...
This is the second in the series The Four Times of Day that Corot painted for his friend, fellow artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. In this panel, the light is brighter than in the previous panel, Morning, and fills the picture. There is an overall lightening of tone and a wider range of colours....
Dahl probably visited the waterfalls at Labro (Labrofoss) when on a sketching trip in Norway, his country of birth, in 1826. Around 80 kilometres west of Oslo, the Labrofoss are among Norway’s major falls. Dahl shows the lower part of the rapids, placing us on flat rocks directly facing the torre...
The Dutch patriot, Jacobus Blauw (1756–1829), played an important role in the foundation of the Batavian Republic in 1795. Although short-lived, it significantly contributed to the transformation of the Netherlands from a confederated structure into a democratic unitary state.Blauw and the artist...
This portrait is one of the first painted by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) when he chose exile in Brussels in 1816 following the fall of Napoleon, whom he had supported, and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. Isolated from Paris, David relied mainly on painting portraits of Brussels citiz...
Delacroix depicts a moment from the Crucifixion, recounted in the Gospel of John (19: 25–30), when Christ speaks to his mother, the Virgin Mary, and one of his disciples, John, just before he dies. Christ’s mother, dressed in blue and yellow robes, collapses into the arms of Mary Cleophas and Joh...
Delacroix painted this portrait of fellow artist, Louis-Auguste Schwiter (1805–1899), in the early years of their lifelong friendship. Not only was this Delacroix’s first full-length portrait, but it also reveals the close attention he paid to work by British artists such as Thomas Gainsborough (...
Lady Jane Grey reigned for just nine days as Queen of England following the death of Edward VI in 1553: she was deposed by the faction supporting Edward’s half-sister and heir, Mary Tudor. Tried for treason, the 17-year-old Lady Jane was beheaded at Tower Hill on 12 February 1554.Delaroche shows...
This was the first painting by Friedrich, one of the principal figures of German Romantic art, to enter a British public collection when it was purchased by the National Gallery in 1987. A man, having cast aside his crutches, lies against a large boulder in a snowy landscape as he prays in front...
The Friedrichsgracht was a canal that ran though the centre of Berlin. While it still survives in present-day Berlin, much of the area has been rebuilt since the Second World War. This striking composition, dominated by the geometrical precision of the zinc roof in the foreground, is typical of G...
Géricault was a keen horseman, and his passion for horses was matched by his expert understanding of their anatomy. In 1813 he produced a number of oil studies and finished paintings, possibly including this one, of horses at the Imperial stables at Versailles. These paintings are characterised b...
Wearing her finest clothes and jewellery, Madame Moitessier gazes majestically at us. She is the embodiment of luxury and style during the Second Empire, which saw the restoration of the French imperial throne and the extravagant display of wealth. Her distinctive pose is based upon a Roman wall...
Monsieur de Norvins had recently been appointed Chief of Police in Rome when Ingres painted his portrait in 1811. He is presented as a reserved, even forbidding, figure who closely scrutinises us as we look at him. Norvins’ loyalty to Napoleon is indicated by the gesture of placing his left hand...
Oedipus stands before the Sphinx, who challenges him to solve a riddle before he can enter the city of Thebes, just visible in the distance. The skull and bones at the bottom of the picture show the fate of those who have previously failed the test. According to legend, Oedipus answers correctly...
This small canvas mounted on panel shows two imaginary portraits of figures from Ancient Greece. The main figure, whose bearded face is shown in profile, is the lyric poet Pindar (518–438 BC). Behind him, and in shadow, is Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon, who lived in the mid-fifth centur...
Christen Købke probably painted this portrait of Wilhelm Bendz (1804–1832) around 1830. Both men were pupils of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen.The style and technique are typical of Købke’s early maturity, when he was beginning to move away from the...
Located just outside Copenhagen, the Citadel (Kastellet) was a former military fort where Christen Købke and his parents lived from 1819 to 1833, although Købke often returned there to paint. He painted this view in 1837, possibly for his mother as a souvenir of their former home.This picture sho...
In the summer of 1867, the German artist Adolph Menzel visited Paris for nine weeks. While there, he almost certainly went to Manet’s temporary pavilion, which for a few days was situated near the Universal Exhibition. The pavilion displayed around 50 of Manet’s paintings, including Music in the...
According to the Old Testament, God instructed Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham’s only son by his wife Sarah, as a test of his faith and obedience (Genesis 22: 1–19). Abraham and Isaac make their way to the place of sacrifice. Isaac carries a bundle of wood for the altar fire on his back, whil...
The subject of this painting is taken from the Old Testament Book of Ruth. The youthful widowed Moabite Ruth is gleaning (gathering up corn left after the harvest) to support her widowed mother-in-law, Naomi. The landowner Boaz has heard of her situation, and impressed by her devotion has instruc...
The Baths of Caracalla, Rome’s second largest public baths, was a popular site for oil-sketching. Here the foreground is broadly worked, the grass flatly painted in a bright lemon green. By contrast the architecture is more sharply and intricately painted, with details in the dark red brickwork p...
The Norwegian painter Peder Balke’s tiny monochromatic paintings on panel are among his most original works. He created them for his own pleasure after a lack of commercial success led him to give up trying to make a living as a professional artist in the 1860s. The fact that he was not aiming to...
Jean Joseph Xavier Bidauld was a member of the early generation of neo-classical landscapists. He was taught by Claude-Joseph Vernet, who had introduced oil sketching to the influential artist and teacher Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes. Bidauld was in Italy from 1785 to 1790, where he produced stud...
It is likely that Bonington made this around 1825-7 at La Ferté, on the estuary of the river Somme in northern France. He probably painted it on location using a wet-in-wet technique – painting directly onto wet paint rather than building up layers or glazes over time – that enabled him to recrea...
Two boats are moored along the right bank of the river Seine as it passes through a peaceful landscape edged with slender trees. Ethereal forms in muted greys and greens are set against a luminous sky, the whole bathed in pearly morning light. The more substantial manner in which the boats are pa...
The view is of Handeck, a hamlet in the Haslital valley in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. We are looking south towards the Bernese Alps and its glaciers in the far distance. The Handeck Falls – for which the area is well known – can be seen in the narrow pass just below. The river in the valley...
It is likely that Corot painted this small oil sketch on paper in the spring of 1826, a few months after beginning his first of three trips to Italy. He painted a number of views that included the Aqua Claudia, a Roman aqueduct, which you can see in the distance, around five kilometres south-east...
Painted around 1800, this small oil sketch on canvas is a fine example of the type of study produced by artists working in Italy from about 1780 to 1850, who painted swiftly and directly from nature. Simon Denis’s oil studies are often of dramatic scenes from nature, particularly the spectacle of...
The glowing sky is set between dark hills and threatening storm clouds, the strip of dense grey clouds at the top echoing the blue silhouette of land at the bottom. Distinctive jigsaw-shaped clouds are depicted in layers white hovering over grey, blue sky beyond fading to rose and peach at the ho...
Originally from Aix-en-Provence, François-Marius Granet studied with both Jean-Antoine Constantin and Jacques-Louis David. In 1802 he travelled to Rome with Comte Auguste de Forbin (1777 -1841) (later curator of the Louvre) for a brief visit; he returned soon after for a stay of 21 years, only re...
This unfinished oil sketch on canvas is by Paul Huet, an important figure in French 19th-century landscape painting. While a student in the 1820s, he often painted outdoors in the park at Saint-Cloud, in the west of Paris. He continued to visit the park throughout his life, and this sketch probab...
A Wall in Naples is not much larger than a postcard. The shuttered windows, irregular pattern of scaffolding holes, patchy cement and water stain from chamber pots thrown out of the window are the freshly observed details of a particular wall, although Jones may have adjusted these slightly to en...
This small oil sketch of Oetzthal, a mountain valley in the Austrian Alps, was painted by the Danish landscape artist, Vilhelm Petersen, when he was travelling to Italy in the summer of 1850. Close to the Italian border, the area is the site of some of Austria’s highest mountains. We are most lik...
This view almost certainly dates from Charles Rémond’s 1822–5 period in Italy. A landscape unfolds under a clear bright sky; a valley runs between overlapping hills, pale blue hills form a backdrop. Despite the luminous sky the colours are muted, the passage from foreground to misty distance care...
Charles Rémond, who studied with the neo-classical landscapist Jean-Victor Bertin (1767 -1842), won the Prix de Rome for historical landscape in 1821 with The Rape of Proserpina by Pluto (Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris). During his four years at the French Academy in Rome, he not only sketched in th...
Under a stormy sunset sky a distant range of mountains is strung out along the horizon. In the foreground a figure stands at the edge of what is possibly an expanse of water. This view was probably painted in 1844, when Rousseau travelled with Jules-Louis Dupré to the Landes, a region south of Bo...
From the grassy outcrop in the left foreground there is a vertiginous drop into the valley, which in its sweep towards the menacing line of mountains in the distance fades from green to blue. The valley is criss-crossed with dark green tree lines, the trees conjured up out of small swirls of the...
Erminio Soldera was born in Cappella Maggiore, near Treviso, and trained with Cesare Tallone (1853 -1919) at the Brera Academy in Rome. He produced frescoes and decorations for churches, but also painted portraits and landscapes, of which this is an early example.Dense greenery dominates the fore...
In 1788, one of George Augustus Wallis’s many patrons, Lord Warwick, financed a trip to Italy. Around that year he arrived in Naples, where he stayed for a number of years, before moving to Rome in 1795. He was nicknamed ‘le Poussin anglais’ by his fellow English artists, and his future son-in-la...
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