The exhibition of Western European art begins with fourteenth century Italian paintings. Among its most significant canvases of the period is the Mystic Marriage of St Catharine painted by a master of the Lorenzo di Bicci circle. In this canvas the artist, faithful to the traditions of icon painting, created an extremely tender image of his subject.

The two greatest Venetians of the late Renaissance, Jacopo Bassano and Tintoretto, are represented by their paintings Adoration of the Shepherds and Apollo and Marsyas.

The Netherlands School is represented by Pieter Pourbus who achieved the outmost simplicity and expressiveness by using a restrained colour scheme.

The Gallery boasts of several works by two prominent seventeenth century Dutch artists, Pieter Claesz and Jan van Goyen. A still life by Pieter Claesz, a mayor figure in this genre of painting, is executed with extreme subtlety, in restrained colour gamut.

The Gallery also possesses a number of outstanding canvases by seventeenth century Flemish masters. Among them is Jacob Jordaens’ Pan and Syrinx, a work of a real scope. Unlike the majority of Flemish artists who had a predilection for large –size, monumental paintings, David Teniers the Younger favoured small canvases depicted genre scenes.

The Gallery houses a first-rate collection of cavases by the Barbizons, including a landscape by their leader Theodore Rousseau, apparently executed in the for5ests of Fontainebleau where these artists loved to paint from nature. The canvases of Diaz de la Pena reveal their author’s fascination with the tense expectant states the surrounding world of nature. The traditions of the French realistic landscapes were further developed by Adolphe Monticelli whose works are a relatively rare phenomenon.

Also on display are some canvases by Eugine Boudin, the originator of the plein-air realistic landscape, who in many respects paved the way for the emergence of the Impressionists.

UNKNOWN FLORENTINE ARTIST            UNKNOWN FLORENTINE ARTIST

The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine           The Nativity

JACOPO BASSANO                                  FRANCESCO GUARDI

Adoration of the Shepherds (Detail)            Inner Courtyard (Detail)

JAN VAN GOYEN                                      DAVID TENIERS the YOUNGER                                 

A View of Dordrecht  (Detail)                      A Game of Bowling (Detail)