Art collector and member of the Burlington Fine Art Club.
Alexander Barker
1797 - 1873
This person is the subject of ongoing research. We have started by researching their relationship to the enslavement of people.
Biographical notes
Slavery connections
No known connections with slavery.
Abolition connections
No known connections with abolition.
National Gallery painting connections
Former owner: NG purchased at auction (Barker sale) in 1874: NG904–916. Additionally, the following paintings were formerly in the Barker Collection and were acquired by the Gallery before or since the 1874 sale: NG667–669, NG2082, NG3929.
Bibliography
anon., 'Barker, Alexander', in J. Turner et al. (eds), Grove Art Online, Oxford 1998-, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T006390
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History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/
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C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 1992-, https://www.oxforddnb.com/
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UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership, London 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
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Paintings previously owned by Alexander Barker
(Showing 6 of 19 works)
Follower of Sandro Botticelli
Portraits like this – of idealised women, seen in profile – were popular in fifteenth-century Florence. This picture is not by Botticelli but by his workshop, which was one of many that produced them. The women usually have fair hair, pale skin and rosy lips, as this was thought to be the most be...
Not on display
Propped up on a pink cushion, this young, fair-haired woman – the ideal of beauty in Renaissance Florence – gazes directly at us. She seems oblivious to the three chubby little boys around her, clutching at handfuls of pink roses.This idealised beauty may represent fertility, with which the pome...
Not on display
This picture, painted in fresco (directly onto wet plaster), was part of a series of eight which decorated the walls of the palace belonging to Pandolfo Petrucci, the ruler of Siena. He commissioned the frescoes to celebrate the marriage of his son to Pope Pius III’s niece. Two others survive in...
Not on display
This picture, painted in fresco (directly onto wet plaster), was part of a series of eight which decorated the walls of the palace belonging to Pandolfo Petrucci, the ruler of Siena. He commissioned the frescoes to celebrate the marriage of his son to Pope Pius III’s niece. Two others survive in...
Not on display
This graceful golden-haired princess comes from a predella, a row of scenes along the base of an altarpiece, or from the frame of an altarpiece. She is Saint Catherine, shown with her traditional attributes of a spiked wheel and a cactus-like martyr’s palm.To show off his skill with foreshortenin...
Not on display
This elegant woman is Mary Magdalene, holding the pot of oil with which she anointed Christ’s feet. Although a biblical figure, she is dressed in the height of fifteenth-century fashion. Her red cloak and uncovered hair were meant to hint at the medieval understanding that she ‘gave herself to al...
Not on display
A saint with a bald head and curly beard stands on a marble platform, his large, deep-set eyes looking straight out at us. He can be identified by the large keys which he holds: he is Saint Peter, the first pope, to whom Christ gave the keys to the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16: 18–19). This is t...
Not on display
This altarpiece is considered Ortolano’s masterpiece. In it he achieves effects of startling realism through his deep understanding of anatomy, optics and perspective. It was made for the church of S. Maria in Bondeno, a small town to the north-west of Ferrara.Saints Sebastian (centre) and Roch (...
Seven saints – all patron saints of members of Florence’s ruling family, the Medici – talk and interact as though Lippi was painting an animated portrait of a group of historical figures.On the far left is Saint Francis. His meditation on the suffering of Christ was so profound that he developed...
Crivelli painted this unusual image of the Virgin standing alone with no Christ Child for the church of San Francesco, Pergola, a little town in the north of the Italian Marche. The Virgin is depicted in a particular role, surrounded by symbols and texts that express the idea that she was conceiv...
Not on display
Virgin kneels in adoration of her new-born son before a ramshackle shed, emphasising Christ’s humble birth. She is accompanied by her husband Joseph and two shepherds, one of whom points to the divine light falling on the shed’s stone wall through a hole in its roof. Music-making angels provide a...
This panel, the first of a series of three in the National Gallery’s collection, shows part of the story of Griselda, a young peasant woman. We see her meet and then marry the Marquis Gualtieri di Saluzzo, who would go on to put her through a series of tests. Her loyalty throughout the ordeal ear...
Not on display
The story of a peasant woman called Griselda was told in The Decameron, a book written in the mid-fourteenth century. She was put through a series of tests by her rich husband, the Marquis Gualtieri di Saluzzo – we see three of them in this painting.In the background on the left, two tiny babies...
Not on display
The Decameron, a fourteenth-century collection of stories, tells the tale of Griselda, a peasant woman who was put through a series of tests by her rich husband, the Marquis Gualtieri di Saluzzo. This is the final panel of a series of three; it shows the couple’s reunion after Griselda’s ordeal.A...
Not on display
This picture, painted in fresco (directly onto wet plaster) was part of the decoration of a room in the palace of the ruling Petrucci family of Siena. Two others survive in the National Gallery’s collection.Love – the naked youth with multi-coloured wings – is chased, captured and finally bound b...
Not on display
The Virgin and Christ Child are framed by a classical marble arch decorated with swags of fruit. Christ balances precariously on the sill, uncertain on his feet; his anxious mother clearly thinks he is about to fall off the edge. In a gesture familiar to all parents of toddlers, she holds her han...
Not on display
Something – or someone – has interrupted the Virgin Mary’s reading. This panel was probably part of a large image which included the angel Gabriel, the cause of her surprise. Gabriel brought her the news that she would conceive a child by the Holy Ghost, and that he would be the son of God (Luke...
Not on display
This tall, narrow panel once hung over the tomb of a Franciscan holy man, the Blessed Gabriele Ferretti (d. 1456). Gabriele was Superior of the small convent of San Francesco in Alto outside Ancona in the Italian Marche. He was famous locally for his fervent piety and for his visions of the Virgi...
Not on display
Venus, the goddess of love, looks over at her lover Mars. She is alert and dignified, while he – the god of war – is utterly lost in sleep. He doesn‘t even notice the chubby satyr (half child, half goat) blowing a conch shell in his ear.This picture was probably ordered to celebrate a marriage, a...
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