Room 38

The figure ascending the stairs is Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (63?‒12 BC): general, statesman, architect and close friend to Augustus Caesar, who reigned as the first Roman Emperor from 27 BC. Agrippa moves through his impressive villa, away from the figures making their requests, and the objects t...

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...

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...

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...

Andrés del Peral sits proudly on a simple chair and looks out at us with a penetrating stare. Goya shows Peral as he really was, with a receding hairline and grey hair. He looks as if he’s sneering at us, but his facial droop suggests he may have suffered a stroke. He places his left hand on his...

This portrait of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, was painted after he had defeated the French forces of Napoleon and entered Madrid victorious in August 1812.Wellington sat for Goya shortly after his arrival in Madrid, and the artist produced a large painting of the Duke on horseback (A...

The scene shown here is taken from an episode in the sixteenth-century epic poem Orlando Furioso, by Ludovico Ariosto. The Christian knight Ruggiero has discovered the pagan princess Angelica, who has been abducted by barbarians. Stripped and chained to a rock, she has been left as a sacrifice to...

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...

Mrs Hollond (1822–1884), born Ellen Julia Teed, was the wife of the pioneering balloonist and MP Robert Hollond. She was a writer and philanthropist who lived for part of each year in Paris, where she held a salon that attracted intellectuals of a progressive cast of mind. Ary Scheffer was a pain...

The subject of this painting is taken from the Old Testament Book of Ruth. The youthful widowed Moabite Ruth is gleaning (gathering up grain 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 instru...