London Past Papers National Gallery

Question 1

What are the exact words – in English translation – of the Latin inscription on the wall in Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait?

Answer 1

Dated 1434, the Latin inscription Johannes de eyck fuit hic translates as:Johannes van Eyck was here, or simply: Jan van Eyck was here. The signature is a key to unlocking a prominent theme in the painting – the role of proxy, as being delegated to represent or act on behalf of another person in their absence.

Question 2

What is the significance of the acorns on the chair in Raphael`s Pope Julius II?

Answer 2

The two golden acorns on the Pope’s chair allude to his family name, della Rovere (rovereis Italian for oak).

Question 3

What is the personal device of Richard II which appears on the Wilton Diptych?

Answer 3

Richard wears a brooch with his own badge of the white hart and a collar with the badge of broom-cods. Adopted by Richard II in 1396.

Question 4

Who painted The Battle of San Romano?

Answer 4

Artist: Paolo Uccello

Question 5

Which painting was commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception of San Francesco, Milan in the late 15th century?

Answer 5

Leonardo da Vinci, ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’?

Question 6

Where is the inscription CAROLUS REX MAGNAE BRITANNIAE in Van Dyck`s equestrian portrait of Charles l?

Answer 6

A tablet tied to a branch reads CAROLUS I REX MAGNAE BRITANIAE (Charles I King of Great Britain)

Question 7

Why was the Wilton Diptych given this particular name?

Answer 7

The Wilton Diptych in the National Gallery takes its name from Wilton House, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, where it was housed between 1705 and 1929.

Question 8

a) What is the name of the current Director of the National Gallery?
b) He was Deputy Director for Collections and Research of which Spanish museum?

Answer 8

a) Dr Gabriele Finaldi has been Director of the National Gallery since August 2015
b) Dr Finaldi was previously Deputy Director for Collections and Research at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, a position he took up in 2002.

Question 9

Which exhibition runs from 14 September 2024 to 19 January 2025?

Answer 9

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers

Question 10

a) The Virgin of the Rocks was commissioned to adorn which church
b) in which city?

Answer 10

a) chapel of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary in the church of San Francesco Grande
b) Milan

The altarpiece was destined for the chapel of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary in the church of San Francesco Grande, the principal church of the Franciscan Order in Milan and the largest church in the city after the Cathedral.

Question 11

Which horse did George Stubbs paint in 1762?

Answer 11

Whistlejacket

Question 12

What was the name of the manor house Rubens bought in 1635?

Answer 12

Het Steen( lit. ‘The Stone’ or ‘The Rock’), also known as the Rubens Castle (Rubenskasteel), is a castle in Elewijt, Flemish Brabant in Belgium. It was owned by the artistPeter Paul Rubensbetween 1635 and his death in 1640 and the castle features in some of his landscape paintings.

Question 13

Name the banker from whom the
first 38 paintings for the collection
were purchased.

Answer 13

When the Gallery was founded in 1824, the first 38 paintings came from the private art collection of the banker John Julius Angerstein.

Question 14

May visitors use selfie sticks when taking photos?

Answer 14

Use of additional lighting or flash, tripods, and selfie sticks is not permitted

Question 15

Name the artist who painted the equestrian portrait of King Charles I.

Answer 15

Anthony van Dyck, ‘Equestrian Portrait of Charles I’, about 1638–9

Question 16

Name the old warship in Turner’s painting, which played a distinguished part in Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar.

Answer 16

Turner,The Fighting Temeraire, 1839

Question 17

Name ONE of the three saints shown in the Wilton Diptych.

Answer 17

On the interior of the diptych Richard is presented to the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child by three saints. They are identified by their attributes:St John the Baptistholds the lamb, St Edward the Confessor a ring, and St Edmund, king and martyr, an arrow.

Question 18

A painting features Niccolò da
Mauruzi da Tolentino on his white
charger. Name the painting AND the
artist.

Answer 18

Paolo Uccello, ‘The Battle of San Romano’, probably about 1438-40

Question 19

The painting ‘The Virgin with the
Infant Saint John the Baptist adoring
the Christ Child accompanied by an
Angel’ is more usually known as?

Answer 19

‘The Virgin of the Rocks’, Leonardo da Vinci

Question 20

How many shops are located in the gallery?

Answer 20

There arethree shopswithinthe National Gallery, open daily from 10am to 5.45pm (Fridays until 8.45pm) and the online shop

Question 21

Which painting was slashed in 1914
by suffragette Mary Richardson?

Answer 21

At the National Gallery on 10th March 1914 the painting known as the ‘Rokeby Venus’ was slashed by Mary Richardson.

Also known asThe Toilet of Venus,Venus at her Mirror,Venus and Cupid; Whose original title was “The Mirror’s Venus”

Question 22

Which painting
a) depicts Jean de Dinteville and
his friend, Georges de Selve
and
b) who was the artist?

Answer 22

a) ‘The Ambassadors’
b) Hans Holbein the Younger

Question 23

Name the firm of architects who
designed the Sainsbury wing.

Answer 23

Robert Venturi

Question 24

Which king is the main subject of the Wilton Diptych?

Answer 24

Richard II who reigned from 1377-1399

Question 25

What is the painting “The Toilet of Venus” by Diego Velazquez also known as?

Answer 25

The RokebyVenus

Question 26

According to Greek mythology in
Titian’s painting “Bacchus and
Ariadne”, who had abandoned
Ariadne on the island of Naxos?

Answer 26

Theseus

They refer to the story ofPrincess Ariadne, who, in love with the hero Theseus, helped him to kill the Minotaur at the palace of Knossos on the island of Crete. Theseus then abandoned her while she slept, on the Greek island of Naxos.

Question 27

Name the hallucinogenic flowers
in Botticelli’s painting “Venus and
Mars”.

Answer 27

Sandro Botticelli may have depicteddatura stramonium, a plant that’s also known as “poor man’s acid.”

Question 28

Name ONE of the two city-states
which are depicted fighting in
Uccello’s ‘The Battle of San
Romano’?

Answer 28

The Battle of San Romano paintings, commissioned by a member of the Bartolini Salimbeni family, depict a minor battle betweenFlorence and Sienathat took place in 1432.

Question 29

Name the TWO ambassadors in
Holbein’s painting ‘The
Ambassadors’.

Answer 29

(i) Jean de Dinteville
(ii) Georges de Selve

the painting memorializesJean de Dinteville, French ambassador to England, and his friend, Georges de Selve, who acted on several occasions as French ambassador to the Republic of Venice, to the Pope in Rome, and to England, Germany, and Spain.

Question 30

What is the name given to the
smoky effect used by Leonardo
da Vinci in ‘The Virgin of the
Rocks’?

Answer 30

Leonardo achieves subtle transitions between light and shadow through another innovative technique, now known as ‘sfumato’ – from the verb ‘turn to smoke’.

Question 31

Monet painted ‘The Gare St-
Lazare’ in 1877. In which city is
the gare (train station)?

Answer 31

Paris

This painting is one of a dozen views of the Gare Saint-Lazare that Monet painted in early 1877. He had known the station since his childhood, and it was also the terminal for trains to many of the key Impressionist sites west of Paris

Question 32

In which artistic style did Seurat paint ‘Bathers at Asnieres’?

Answer 32

‘Bathers at Asnières’ is an important transitional work. It shows him developing the application of his novel pointillist technique to a large work on the scale of History painting.

Seurat is considered one of the most important Post-Impressionist painters.

Question 33

Name TWO restrictions on the use of photography in the main galleries.

Answer 33

(i) Photography/filming is permitted in exhibitions for personal non-commercial use, unless otherwise stated on the label by the exhibited work.
(ii) Use of additional lighting or flash, tripods, and selfie sticks is not permitted

Question 34

Name the 16th century artist
famous for biographies of the
lives of the Renaissance great
masters.

Answer 34

Giorgio Vasari

The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects(Italian:Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori), often simply known asThe Lives(Italian:Le Vite), is a series of artist biographies written by 16th-century Italian painter and architectGiorgio Vasari, which is considered “perhaps the most famous, and even today the most-read work of the older literature of art”,”some of theItalian Renaissance’s most influential writing on art”, and “the first important book onart history”.

Question 35

Turner left two landscape
paintings to the nation, on
condition they were hung next to
which artist’s work?

Answer 35

Claude Gellée

When Turner died in 1851, he left to the National GalleryDido building CarthageandSun rising through Vapouron condition that they were hung ‘always between the two pictures painted by Claude’, which he named as ‘The Seaport’ and ‘The Mill’.

Question 36

Why was Velasquez’s painting
The Toilet of Venus damaged by
Mary Richardson in 1914?

Answer 36

In 1914, Canadian suffragette Mary Richardson slashed the work with a meat cleaverto protest the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst, a leader of the women’s suffrage movement in Great Britain at the time.

Question 37

Which painting in the National
Gallery features in a scene with Q
and James Bond in the film
Skyfall?

Answer 37

The Fighting Temeraire

Skyfall. World-famous spy 007 sits next to an unassuming man in the Gallery, in front of Turner’s ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ in Room 34. It is here that we see Q, played by Ben Whishaw, present Daniel Craig’s Bond with plane tickets and a gun, ahead of his next mission.

Question 38

Who occupied the house in Constable’s painting The Haywain?

Answer 38

The house on the left side of the painting belonged to a neighbour,Willy Lott, a tenant farmer, who was said to have been born in the house and never to have left it for more than four days in his lifetime.

Question 39

What type of paint did Van Eyck use in the Arnolfini Portrait?

Answer 39

Oil on oak

Question 40

What is the title of the English
painting which finally found
success when it was exhibited in
Paris in 1824?

Answer 40

The Hay Wain

Question 41

Name the family thought to have
commissioned Botticelli’s “Venus
and Mars”.

Answer 41

The wasps might provide a clue:vespeis the Italian for wasp, and Botticelli might have been making a pun on the name of the noble Florentine family, the Vespucci, who were patrons of his.

Question 42

Name the church in Florence for
which Jacopo di Cione’s
“Coronation of the Virgin” was
made.

Answer 42

These images come from a large, four-tiered altarpiece created for the high altar of the choir of the church of San Pier Maggiore in Florence.

Question 43

The “Battle of San Romano” was
painted in tempera with two oils.
Name ONE of those oils.

Answer 43

Egg tempera with walnut oil and linseed oil on poplar

Question 44

What is the title of the only
painting in the National Gallery
collection by Artemesia
Gentileschi?

Answer 44

Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of AlexandriaIn thisself portrait, Artemisia shows herself in the guise of the 4th-century martyr, Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Sentenced to death by the emperor Maxentius, Catherine was bound to revolving wheels studded with iron spikes.

Question 45

Where was the old gun ship The Fighting Temeraire finally broken up?

Answer 45

The painting depicts the 98-gun HMS Temeraire, one of the last second-rateships of the lineto have played a role in the Battle of Trafalgar, being towed upthe Thamesby a paddle-wheel steam tug in 1838, towards its final berth in Rotherhithe to be broken up for scrap.

Question 46

What is gesso?

Answer 46

Gesso, also known as “glue gesso” or “Italian gesso”, is a whitepaintmixture used to coat rigid surfaces such as woodenpainting panelsormasoniteas a permanent absorbentprimersubstrate forpainting. It consists of abindermixed withchalk,gypsum,pigment, or any combination of these.

Question 47

Who painted “Summer’s Day”?

Answer 47

Berthe Morisot

Question 48

Name TWO of the main artists of the High Renaissance.

Answer 48

(i) Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
(ii) Michelangelo(1475–1564)
(iii) Raphael(1483–1520)

HighRenaissance art, which flourished for about 35 years, from the early 1490s to 1527, when Rome was sacked by imperial troops, revolved around three towering figures:Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519),Michelangelo(1475–1564), andRaphael(1483–1520).

Question 49

Which animals are pulling the
chariot in Titian’s “Bacchus and
Ariadne”?

Answer 49

The two cheetahs pulling the chariot may also be personal references.Bacchus’ chariot is normally drawn bytigers or panthers, but Alfonso d’Este is known to have had a menagerie at the palace in which he kept a cheetah or a cheetah-like member of the cat family.

Question 50

What hangs from the King’s neck
in the ‘’Equestrian Portrait of
Charles I’’?

Answer 50

The gold chain around his neck, commonly called the ‘Little George’, shows that he’s a member of an elite society called the Order of the Garter.