On Monday, 12 October, 1654, shortly after half past eleven in the morning, one of Delft's gunpowder stores exploded & destroyed a large part of the city. This painting by van der Poel shows the terrible damage caused by the explosion. In the distance against the horizon the two major churches of the city, the Oude & the Niewe Kerk, stand relatively intact. Between them is the Town Hall tower. The church on the extreme right is the chapel of the Hospital of St George in Noordeinde. To the right of the picture is the area where the gunpowder had been stored; all that remains are a crater filled with water, some burnt trees, roofless houses, & piles of rubble. In the foreground, people are busy helping the wounded & comforting one another. Two men crossing a bridge on the left of the picture carry a basket containing the few belongings they have managed to salvage. When the store exploded, it contained about 90, 000 pounds of gunpowder. Although the number of people killed is not known, it has been estimated that there were hundreds of deaths. Among the casualties was one of Delft's most famous painters, Carel Fabritius. ...

Create your own bespoke print of Carel Fabritius’s The Madonna & Child with Saint John the Baptist & Saint Elizabeth from our collection. About this painting A View of Delft, with a Musical Instrument Seller's Stall, 1652 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1922 With our custom print service, you can order your own fully customised reproduction from the National Gallery Collection & exhibitions. Choose your own size, print material & frames & have your masterpiece delivered straight to your door. ...

Create your own bespoke print of Bronzino’s A View of Deventer seen from the North-West from our collection. About this painting A View of Deventer seen from the North-West, 1657 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1962 With our custom print service, you can order your own fully customised reproduction from the National Gallery Collection & exhibitions. Choose your own size, print material & frames & have your masterpiece delivered straight to your door. ...

Create your own bespoke print of Peter Paul Rubens’ A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning from our collection. About this painting An Autumn Landscape with a View of Het Steen in the Early Morning, probably 1636 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1823/8 With our custom print service, you can order your own fully customised reproduction from the National Gallery Collection & exhibitions. Choose your own size, print material & frames & have your masterpiece delivered straight to your door. ...

The large house partially hidden by trees has been identified as Het Sterckshof in Duerne near Antwerp. It has been suggested that the figures in the foreground may be the owner Jacob Edelheer & his wife Isabelle ven Lemens. The figure who offers the ...

The tower in the centre background resembles that of Santa Maria della Torre which was beside the Ripa Grande, the old port of Rome opposite the Aventine. The other buildings seem to have been invented by the artist. The picture appears to be a slightly inaccurate reminiscence of the site. It is painted on oak, an unusual support to have been used in Italy & was probably painted shortly after Both's return to Holland in about 1641. The artist also painted a more topographically accurate view of the Ripa Grande from the south-west (Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut). ...

This moonlight scene has not been identified & is probably not intended to be topographically accurate. Van der Neer's early work was influenced by the landscape painters Joachim (1602
- 1659) & Raphael (1598
- 1657) Camphuysen, whom he knew in Gorinc

...

The costume of the old woman on the left, with its prominent gold braiding on the bodice, was traditional dress in the Province of North Holl&. In the right background a quack has set up his stall beneath his distinctive Chinese umbrella. The model for the cobbler reappears in Victors's ' The Swine Butcher', signed & dated 1648 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) & in another picture of 1651 (York, City Art Gallery). This picture was probably painted in about 1650. ...

The painting is probably a finished sketch (modello) for a relatively early altarpiece, commissioned about 1735 by Clemens August, Archbishop Elector of Cologne for the palace of Nymphenburg, near Munich. Saint Clement, the namesake of the Archbishop Elect ...

The painting is unfinished; areas of foliage have not been completed. The attribution of this work to Rubens has in the past been doubted, but 'A Wagon fording a Stream' is now considered to be by the artist. The dating of Rubens's landscapes is problematic because they were not commissioned & so relatively few documents concerning them survive. This view also appears with slight variations in another landscape by the artist (Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen). It has also been related to a drawing in St Petersburg (Hermitage). ...