Room 29

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...

The figure in black is the Greek archbishop John Bessarion. In 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Christian) Empire, to the Islamic Ottoman Empire, Bessarion became a permanent resident in Venice. He joined the Scuola della Carità, a religious confratern...

Leonardo Loredan knows that he is being looked at, but he does not return our gaze. He is the doge, the ruler of the Venetian Republic; elected in 1501, he ruled until his death in 1521.He wears white silk damask robes woven with gold and silver metal thread, clothing reserved for the most splend...

The Virgin Mary adores the Christ Child sleeping on her lap. Giovanni Bellini was one of the first Italian painters to use natural settings to enhance the meaning of his pictures. Here, the still Virgin contrasts with the landscape, where the varying shapes of the clouds, from thin and wispy to f...

An elderly man, barefoot and with an impressive grey beard, is perched on a rock, engrossed in a book. This is Saint Jerome, translator of the Bible into Latin. His only companion is an endearing lion which lies peaceably in the corner – he had tamed it by removing a thorn from its paw.Bellini pa...

Christ’s disciple Judas – visible just beyond the river, leading a group of soldiers to Christ – has betrayed him. Aware of his imminent arrest and death, Christ prays; a cherub appears and presents him with a chalice. The chalice refers to the words of his prayer: ‘My Father, if it be possible,...

This scene tells the story of the murder of Saint Peter Martyr, a friar of the Dominican Order who was killed by members of the Cathars, a heretical sect whose teachings he had spoken against publicly. The saint is shown on the left – he has collapsed to his knees, an axe lodged in his skull. His...

Christ is shown resurrected after dying at the Crucifixion, his triumph over death reinforced by the way he cradles the Cross on which he was crucified. His body is weak and pale – we can see his ribcage, and his cheekbones stick out of his gaunt face. The focus of the image is the wound in Chris...

According to the Gospel of Luke, Christ was circumcised, like all Jewish baby boys, when he was eight days old (Luke 2: 21). He is shown naked, sitting on a cushion upon a table or altar, clenching his little fists as a priest performs the ritual. His mother, the Virgin Mary, gently props him up;...

Andrea Gritti (1455–1538) was elected doge (head of the Venetian state) in 1523, and this painting was probably made soon afterwards. He wears his robes of office and on his left hand is a gold ring with a device representing the doge kneeling before Saint Mark, patron saint of Venice.Catena’s po...

The meaning of this scene is difficult to decipher, largely because the painting is very damaged and many areas are not original. The two foreground figures are genuine and may represent Saint Roch and Gothardus, who tended the plague sore on Saint Roch’s thigh. If this is the case, the picture m...

The shape and subject matter of this picture suggest that it was possibly painted as part of the predella (or lower part) of an altarpiece, although predellas were already rare in Venetian art during Giorgione’s lifetime.The Virgin, Child and Saint Joseph are sitting on the steps of the stable wh...

The subject of this painting is obscure – a melancholy enthroned figure sits with books at his feet. A young man sitting on the step plays a lute as a boy approaches the throne and a kneeling man offers a bowl of flowers. All have respectfully removed their hats. A hermit appears in a cave in the...

El Greco has used theatrical gestures and intense colours to express the chaos and disruption of the Purification of the Temple – the moment that Christ drove out traders selling animals for sacrifice, furious that the temple was being used for commerce. Christ’s anger is shown through his body,...

The artist of this panel has sculpted the drops of blood which fall from Christ’s side and hands and then painted over them to emphasise their gore. The circular wounds in Christ’s hands were caused by the nails of the Crucifixion and the wound in his ribcage by a Roman soldier’s spear. Christ’s...

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...

Christ prays before a group of cherubs who hold up the instruments of his torture and death. His disciple Judas, who has betrayed him, leads a large band of soldiers down from Jerusalem to arrest him. Meanwhile his other disciples sleep.This painting reflects many of the artistic issues that woul...

This thoughtful man, probably in his late twenties, is richly dressed in a costume dating from about 1516. He holds a rosary and his hand rests on a book tied with blue ribbons. Round his neck is a type of gold chain worn by the minor nobility.The book and the laurels behind him suggest that he m...

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...

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...

One of the most famous paintings in the National Gallery, Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne illustrates a story told by the classical authors Ovid and Catullus. The Cretan princess Ariadne has been abandoned on the Greek island of Naxos by Theseus, whose ship sails away in the distance. Bacchus, god o...

While hunting, Actaeon accidentally stumbles upon the secret bathing place of Diana, chaste goddess of the hunt, and sees her naked. His fate is foretold by the stag’s skull on the plinth and the skins of Diana’s former prey hanging above her head. The conclusion of the story is shown in another...

The nymph Callisto was the favourite of Diana, virgin goddess of the hunt. Jupiter, king of the gods, noticed her beauty and disguised himself to seduce her. Titian has painted the moment Diana forces Callisto to strip and bathe after hunting and discovers her pregnancy. The drama is heightened b...

Risen from the dead, Christ appears to his grieving follower, Mary Magdalene, in the Garden of Gethsemane. At first she mistakes him for a gardener but then reaches out her hand in wonder. Christ says, ‘Do not touch me’ (in Latin, noli me tangere); it is time for his followers to let go of his ea...

The story of Actaeon is told in the Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid. In Titian’s earlier Diana and Actaeon, painted for King Philip II of Spain in 1556–9 and now jointly owned by the National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland, Actaeon disturbs the goddess Diana and her nymphs at...

The Pharisees (chief priests) ask Christ whether it is right to pay tax to the Romans, who rule Palestine. Christ, sensing a trap, asks whose likeness and name are on the coinage: ‘They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then he saith unto them, render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and...

The Virgin Mary gazes at the infant Christ who feeds from her breast. The naked child is encircled in his mother’s arms and twists away from us. Our eye is drawn from the Virgin’s delicate fingers, up the line of Christ’s back and to the expression of devotion on her face.Titian appears to be cit...