The New Testament relates how after his birth, Jesus was circumcised according to Jewish tradition (Luke 2: 21). The black background seems to be original. Paintings of this subject were highly popular in Venice in the late 15th & early 16th century; this composition was extremely popular & was much copied & adapted. ...

The subject possibly shows the quarrelsome end of the Silver Age, according to Hesiod, or perhaps according to a contemporary derivation from him. Similar subjects occur in a number of paintings by Cranach; some of these are dated 1527, 1529 & 1535. This ...

The painting seems to have been part of a series illustrating the ' Triumphs' by the poet Petrarch (1304
- 1374). Love's arrows
...

Create your own bespoke print of Gerrit Lundens’s The Company of Captain Banning Cocq & Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch (' The Nightwatch') from our collection. About this painting The Company of Captain Banning Cocq & Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch (' The Nightwatch'), after 1642 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1857 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. ...

This painting has a strong claim to be ter Brugghen's finest treatment of a secular subject. He has taken a scene favoured by Caravaggio & his Roman followers
- a group of flamboyantly dressed musicians seen by candlelight
- & treated it in his own distinctive manner, placing the dramatically lit half-length figures against a light background. Paintings of the same subject by Caravaggio (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) & Bartolommeo Manfredi (Florence, Uffizi) are among the prototypes for this composition. Their large-scale, half-length figures, their crowding together within the composition & their closeness to the edge of the canvas, as well as the bright, colourful palette can all be found in this painting. Ter Brugghen brings to this existing format an individual fluency in modelling the soft edges of his forms & a remarkable subtlety of palette.

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These four pictures are from a series illustrating stories from ancient Roman history. They show (top to bottom): ' The Attack on Cartagena', ' The Continence of Scipio', ' The Rape of the Sabines' & ' The Intervention of the Sabine Women'. Two other pictures from the same series are known: a ' Coriolanus' & a ' Scipio rewarding the Soldiers'. ' The Continence of Scipio' & ' Rape of the Sabines' were popular topics for illustration. The format of the pictures suggests they were made for the decoration of a room. The series is now thought to be the work of a minor Italian painter of the third quarter of the 16th century who was familiar with the work of Giulio Romano & Raphael, on whose styles they depend. ...

The story of the conversion of the Magdalene represented here is not told in the Gospels, but is implied by her actions towards Christ. The work is based on a lost fresco by Federico Zuccaro formerly in the Grimani chapel in S. Francesco della Vigna, Venice, & datable to the early 1560s. The composition was modified to incorporate portraits, presumably of members of Grimani's family. The painting was mentioned in Grimani's will. ...

This early work was probably produced for a noble patron in Verona. There has been much debate over the subject matter; however, it is now generally believed that the painting shows the conversion of Mary Magdalene. Concerned for her sister's spiritual health, Martha takes Mary to the Temple to hear Jesus preach. Veronese shows Mary blushing with shame & sunk to her knees as she is overcome by Christ's words. Her fashionably low-cut dress, inappropriate for a visit to the Temple, is emblematic of her formerly sinful life centered on vanity & pleasure. Converted by this encounter Mary then turns to a life of piety. The jewellery slipping from her neck foreshadows her subsequent renunciation of worldly goods. The scene depicted is absent from the Bible & the Golden Legend but narrated in Pietro Aretino's book 'L'umanità di Cristo' (1535). This publication was widely read in Northern Italy & probably constitutes the literary source for the painting. ...

This painting by a Cologne artist, together with ' The Mass of Saint Hubert' was one of the inside shutters of an altarpiece from the Benedictine Abbey at Werden, near Cologne. The outside shutters, depicting various saints, are also in the National Galler ...

The painting is unusual, though by no means unique, as a Dutch painting of the later 17th century representing a dramatic religious theme. Such subjects had been treated by Rembrandt &, in the earlier years of the century, by the Dutch followers of Cara ...