Nicola Jennings

As one​ of the day’s first visitors to the National Gallery, I arrived at the Zurbarán exhibition just before the lights went on. Suddenly, as if in an ecstatic vision, a huge image of Christ on the Cross against a black backdrop appeared in front of me. Projecting into the gallery space, with soft and supple skin, Christ seemed almost alive. Zurbarán made the painting for...

Clothes​ have rarely mattered more than they did at the Spanish court in the 17th century. Portraits were already key to the game of sartorial diplomacy and one-upmanship. When the itinerant Charles V was struggling to establish his rule over the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, he sent the Spanish court Titian’s copy of his portrait, originally painted by Jakob Seisenegger, in...

Archer Huntington​, whose collection is now on display in Spain and the Hispanic World: Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum and Library at the Royal Academy (until 10 April), was something of an oddity. Unlike the other masterpiece hunters of the late 19th century, Huntington was more of a taxonomer, acquiring hundreds of thousands of objects to create ‘a broad outline without...

When​ in 2010 a group of Old Testament paintings by Francisco de Zurbarán were offered for private sale it came as something of a surprise. The owner couldn’t be blamed for failing to anticipate the resulting public outcry: the pictures of Jacob and 11 of his 12 sons had hung at Auckland Castle in County Durham for more than 250 years, and, though viewable by appointment, had...

Despite​ being the most imaginative Spanish painter of the 15th century, and the only one to master the illusionistic techniques pioneered by Jan Van Eyck, Bartolomé Bermejo’s small but spectacular body of work is little known. The National Gallery acquired the panel Saint Michael Triumphant over the Devil (below) from the sale of the Luton Hoo estate contents in 1995. In common...