Dell’Abate is best known for the fresco decorations he completed for the French court at Fontainebleau where he moved in 1522. This painting is one of a small group of portraits dating from the period the artist was still working in his native Modena. It depicts a North Italian aristocrat whose haughty demeanour is emphasised by his averted gaze. His imposing body completely fills the canvas in a way typical of Italian Mannerist portraiture during the 1540s. The art of falconry, indicated here by the tethered bird of prey perched on the sitter’s gloved hand, was a popular sport among the nobility of northern Italy.

Cambiaso was the leading artist in Genoa in the 16th century. A number of his later works are nocturnal scenes, where the figures are defined by flickering highlights from a single candle in an otherwise shadowy setting. He painted several variants of the Holy Family in this manner. It would be almost another half century before the idea caught on among Caravaggio and his northern followers, such as Gerrit van Honthorst and Georges de la Tour.

Procaccini was one of the leading painters active in Lombardy in the early 17th century. He was based in Milan, but also worked in Genoa where the wealthy banker Gian Carlo Doria was an enthusiastic patron. This altarpiece was painted for Doria. The painting is not a narrative. Rather the dead body of Christ on the cross – the Corpus Christi – is offered as an object for devotion in relation to the sacrament of the Eucharist which would have taken place at the altar below.

Strozzi began his career in Genoa (where he was much influenced by Giulio Cesare Procaccini) and from 1630 worked in Venice. This work depicts the apostle St Peter miraculously released by an angel from the prison in which he had been incarcerated by King Herod prior to his intended execution. The highly focused composition, vigorous application of paint and unidealised facial types are typical of Strozzi’s robust manner.

This work belongs to a period after Van Bijlert’s return in 1624 to his native Utrecht after a stay in Rome, where in common with other Utrecht artists such as Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick ter Brugghen, he had been influenced by the work of Caravaggio. The picture had a pendant (present whereabouts unknown) of a cheerful young man tuning his lute. Music-making and musical accompaniment were frequently taken at the period as alluding to amorous activity.

Wearing a breastplate and sword, the man depicted clearly holds military office. The paper in his hand (with its broken red wax seal) could be a letter of appointment. The portrait is much smaller than is usual for the artist, but is not a sketch. It may be a repetition by Largillierre of a larger original, or possibly represents the artist’s response to the small, exquisitely finished portraits by Dutch painters then becoming fashionable in France.

Benjamin Hoadly (1706–57), son of the Bishop of Winchester, was a medical doctor and dramatist. His popular comedy The suspicious husband was first performed at Covent Garden in 1747 with David Garrick in the lead role. He was a close friend of Hogarth whom he assisted in writing his quasi-scientific treatise on aesthetics, The analysis of beauty (1753). In character he was said to be ‘an amiable humane man and an agreeable sprightly companion’. The sobriety of this portrait – one of three portraits of the sitter by Hogarth – possibly reflects Hoadly’s appointment in 1742 as physician to the Royal household.

Madame de La Porte is a fine example of the exquisite court portrait style that ensured Nattier’s success at Versailles from around 1740, particularly as a painter of women. The artist handles paint with a softness that recalls the pastel portraits that were so much in vogue at the period. The sitter was once thought to be a comtesse, but seems rather to be masquerading as one; she has now been identified as the wife of the still-life painter Henri-Horace Roland de La Porte.

Formerly attributed to Thomas Hudson, this canvas has recently been reattributed to Joseph Wright of Derby. It was probably painted during the period of Wright’s employment in Hudson’s studio in 1756–57 or very shortly afterwards. The costume is a type of fancy dress worn to masquerades known in the 18th century as ‘Van Dyck dress’, though in fact it is based on a portrait of Rubens’ second wife Helena Fourment (now in the British Museum). The same dress is repeated in several portraits by Hudson and Wright.

Samuel Kilderbee (1725–1813) was an Ipswich attorney who became a close friend of Gainsborough. The two men exchanged letters that are now lost, but which were described in the 19th century as ‘brilliantly eccentric and too licentious to be published’. A close examination reveals (and an X-ray confirms) that the portrait has been repainted in everything except the face. This perhaps occurred around 1783, as it was in that year that Kilderbee accompanied Gainsborough on a tour of the Lake District.

Stephen Croft, Junior (1744–1813) or Lieutenant Stephen Croft of Stillington (Yorkshire) was appointed in 1760 a cornet in the Royal North British Dragoons, known the Royal Scots Greys. The Scots Greys were stationed in Germany and the teenager was thus about to be separated from his family for some time. Like many of Reynolds’s portraits, this example suffers from the fading of a fugitive crimson pigment in the face which makes the sitter look rather sickly.

The 41-year-old Lord Lauderdale (1718–89) had distinguished himself in the army, but was still young when he resigned and took a seat in the House of Lords (1747–61, 1782–84). He later also served as Lord of Police for Scotland and Rector of Glasgow University. Unequalled in his capacity for flattering portrayal, Reynolds shows a sophisticated young aristocrat leaning on the base of a Solomonic (twisted) column, suggestive of a trip to Italy the Scottish peer never in fact made.

This ceiling sketch shows the apotheosis of a pope. Angels hold his tiara (above) and his staff with a triple cross (below). The palm leaf held by one of the cherubs is a symbol of martyrdom, but the identity of this martyr-pope remains mysterious. The brown ground used to prepare the canvas is left uncovered around the edges. The picture still has a discoloured varnish and areas of restoration have become more apparent with age.

At Jacob’s well Christ converses with a Samaritan woman: ‘whosoever drinks of [the well] water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him [ie Christian faith] shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life’. The painting was commissioned by Thomas Macklin, an ambitious print seller established in London. The engraving made from it was used in an elaborate illustrated edition of the Bible which Macklin finally published in 1800.

Raeburn’s portraits evoke a romance that lies at the heart of the 19th-century image of Scottishness. Hence the figure of Spottiswoode (1780–1866) is seen from a low viewpoint against a brooding, stormy sky. Yet this was a man of pragmatic enlightenment; his achievements ranged from the publishing of the ancient charters of Dryburgh Abbey to breeding the largest ox ever recorded. His literary inclinations were shared by his brothers who ran the publishing firm that became Eyre & Spottiswoode.