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| attributed to Giorgione Portrait of an archer before 1510 oil on panel National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Cariani Portrait of a young woman as Saint Agatha 1516-17 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Paolo Veronese Saint Anthony Abbot as patron of a kneeling donor ca. 1570-88 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
"This fragment once formed the lower left part of an arched altarpiece painted by Veronese around 1563 for the Petrobelli family chapel in the church of San Francesco in Lendinara, near Rovigo. The huge painting was cut up for sale in 1788-89. Two other large fragments survive, showing the dead Christ with angels (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) and St Jerome with the donor, Girolamo Petrobelli (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London). Part of a wing, an arm with a spear, and a devil visible at the right of this canvas originally belonged to a central figure of the Archangel Michael, to whom the chapel was dedicated. The head of this figure has recently been identified in the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas."
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| Paolo Veronese Mars, Venus and Cupid ca. 1580 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Paris Bordone Venetian women at their toilet ca. 1545 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Paris Bordone Rest on the return from Egypt ca. 1540 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Giovanni Battista Moroni Portrait of Giovanni Bressani 1562 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
"Giovanni Bressani (1489/90-1560) was the dominant literary figure in sixteenth-century Bergamo, and his prolific output included thousands of verses in Latin, Italian and local dialect, as well as novellas and other prose works. He was the friend and mentor of other local poets, including the noblewomen Isotta Brembate and Lucia Albani, both of whose portraits had been painted by Moroni. When he died the members of his literary circle collaborated to produce a collection of funerary verses in his honour; presumably both the portrait medal of 1561, signed by the otherwise little known medallist Arsensio, and the present portrait painted by Moroni, were similarly commissioned as posthumous tributes by the same group of friends, pupils and admirers. . . . The objects on the table include a bronze inkwell in the form of a foot, of a type inspired by ancient Roman lamps, and a container for sand with which to dry the ink, in addition to the plenitude of books and papers. While obviously appropriate to Bressani's profession, these objects push the sitter back into the space, making him more remote, and further reducing the effect of psychological immediacy that is usually so pronounced in Moroni's portraits. It is as if the painter, while aiming to provide Bressani's friends with a vivid likeness with which to remember him, also wished to create an effect of repose and distance appropriate to a posthumous image."
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| workshop of Tintoretto Portrait of a gentleman ca. 1580 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Jacopo Bassano Adoration of the Kings ca. 1540-45 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Bacchiacca Moses striking the rock ca. 1525 oil on panel National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Lorenzo Lotto Virgin and Child with Saints ca. 1505 oil on panel, transferred to canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
"The Christ Child leans over to study a scroll held by the elderly St Jerome, on which Lotto has playfully signed his name (in its Latin form: LOTVS). The stiffness of the child's pose is echoed in the angular folds of Mary's draperies. She acknowledges St Francis with her raised hand. A cloth of honour stretches across the painting separating the foreground group (which also includes St Peter and a female saint) from the landscape behind. The woodcutters felling a tree allude to the wood of the cross and therefore to Christ's Passion."
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| Titian Diana and Callisto ca. 1556-59 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Titian Diana and Actaeon ca. 1556-59 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Giovanni Maria Mosca Relief of Mucius Scaevola ca. 1523 marble National Galleries of Scotland |
"This relief is thought to be part of a group of tablets which represent human virtues as praised in classical literature. The subject is taken from Livy's Annals. Rome in 507 BC was besieged by the Etruscans under Lars Porsenna, King of Clusium. Caius Mucius, a young Roman noble, penetrated the Etruscan camp but instead of assassinating Porsenna, killed the King's aide by mistake. Captured by guards, he thrust his right hand into flames of a nearby altar to show how cheaply he valued his life. Duly impressed, Porsenna let him go. . . . Such reliefs as Mucius Scaevola were produced for the pleasure of learned men at Padua and Venice, in much the same way as bronze plaquettes and statuettes. These marble reliefs were relatively small, easily portable, and clearly not intended to be attached to walls, as at least two of them (the Philoctetes in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, and the Eurydice in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples) bear beautifully cut long inscriptions on the reverse. Some of these reliefs were probably commissioned as tokens to friends and relations who the donors believed manifested, or should manifest, some of the same virtues as the gods and heroes of antiquity."
– extracts from curator's notes at the National Galleries of Scotland