The earliest works in the Wallace Collection were predominantly created for Christian public worship or private prayer and the focus is therefore on their didactic purpose. The beginnings of the Italian Renaissance, literally “rebirth” of interest in classical learning, brought the introduction of secular subject matter, embracing allegories and portraiture, ‘discovery’ of the new technique of perspective and an interest in naturalism. Artists in Florence, Milan and Rome developed a new artistic language, based on the study of ancient sculpture, anatomy, nature and geometry and achieved a union of classical ideals and Christian divinity. Renaissance Italy witnessed an outpouring of all the visual arts, with artists responding to enthusiastic patrons, including the popes and creating pioneering art of monumental grandeur and technical sophistication. Venice in the 16th century experienced a golden age of painting, transformed by a generation of artists who redefined the possibilities of oil paint to depict natural and atmospheric light, emphasise sensuous textures and create deeply saturated colours to enhance mood and spirituality.

The Baroque era produced highly expressive art, filled with human drama, theatrical gestures and rich ornament. During the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church reasserted itself against Protestantism and its emphasis on the written word, by using patronage of architecture, sculpture and painting to convey Catholic theology, in order to restore its prominence. Flemish artists produced powerful religious images with strong characterisation and expressive narratives which were the perfect vehicle for religious imagery. They also sought to portray convincing realism in dazzling aristocratic portraits produced for an international clientele from the church, royalty and nobility. These magnificent portraits, attentive to the details of nature and human anatomy and accurate in their observation of light effects, were designed to flatter sitters and record for posterity splendid public images of wealthy and significant individuals. Dynamic compositions, virtuoso brushwork, dramatic lighting and vivid use of colour were employed to express emotional intensity in paintings for private and public display or worship.

Spanish devotional and portrait painting flourished during the 17th century, with an emphasis on convincing earthly realism in the representation of holy figures and royalty. The vigorous Baroque style, which had emerged in Rome at the turn of the 17th century, spread to other Catholic countries including Spain and represented a new direction in the arts, as the Catholic Church put pressure on artists to seek the most convincing realism possible in its campaign to counter the Protestant Reformation. In Spain, artists combined spiritual intensity and symbolic meaning with unaffected realism, immediacy and intimacy, to produce works which appealed to public piety and were to have a profound effect on religious imagery. Virtuoso fluent brushwork, rich vivid colour and dramatic lighting were employed by Spanish artists to created an elegant and beautiful technique. Portraits were in high demand from Spanish royalty, church dignitaries and the aristocracy and iconic portraits, both spectacularly elegant yet psychologically penetrating, were painted, immortalising the dignity and character of the Spanish Royal Family and court personalities.

In Protestant countries such as the Dutch Republic, the Reformation led to a decline in religious commissions and wealthy patrons increasingly collected paintings for private viewing. Artists of the Dutch Golden Age created stunning masterpieces and typically specialised in specific subject matter, whether historical, biblical, portraiture, still-life or genre. Small-scale, well-made and often full of symbolism, Dutch pictures were painted in a highly polished style with meticulous attention to detail, exquisite rendering of light falling on various textures and in a bold, often restricted, palette. This unique style was used to record everyday activities in quiet interior scenes of elegant domesticity or moralising satirical genre scenes, portraits of Dutch merchants and ideal patriotic landscapes and seascapes. The art market of the prosperous Dutch Republic was unprecedented, with pictures being purchased by the new bourgeoisie for domestic decoration. Pictures were also made for financial gain, as investing and trading in art became a major activity and took place at all levels of society, with great opportunities for dealers.

Artists from many countries travelled to Rome, the centre of the 17th century European art world, to study the masterpieces of the Renaissance. Rome became the centre for innovation in landscape painting; French artists working there, with their Italian contemporaries, developed a form of classical landscape based on naturalism for connoisseurs and the ideal landscape tradition began. These works were held in high regard in England and were to prove enormously influential on later painters, especially in the treatment of light and the sun to create luminous scenes. Artists in the Dutch Republic continued to produce beautiful paintings in which national pride was reflected in largely secular works of scenes from the present day, including still-life, landscapes, maritime and flower painting. Still-life artists stunned the public with their virtuoso rendition of life-like textures creating an illusion that the food, crockery and flowers actually existed on the canvas. Landscape and maritime artists, who mastered composition, light and space with luminous, atmospheric paintings, were in high demand from both the Dutch and English markets.

The Rococo style evolved in France in the beginning, with sophisticated and technically accomplished painters developing an art concerned with decoration, pastoral poetry, frivolity and light-hearted subject matter. This style, popular during the reign of Louis XV, is characterised by a light palette, swirling, curved forms, asymmetry and ornamentation and had a major impact on architecture, interior design and the decorative arts as well as painting. A blend of elegance, wit and amorous themes, French Rococo art provided a form of escapism to a dreamy world of beauty in pastoral settings, parklands and boudoirs. The ‘fête galante’, a new type of poetic subject in which elegant young fashionably dressed couples wandered around ideal park gardens, courting and dancing, was pioneered. Artists were often inspired by the theatre for their characters and some became stage set and tapestry designers. The French Revolution brought renewed emphasis on the public and didactic purpose of art and, in response, artists adopted Neo-Classicism, depicting academic and historical subjects in ordered compositions.

The Rococo style evolved in France at the beginning of the 18th century, with sophisticated and technically accomplished painters developing an art concerned with decoration, pastoral poetry, frivolity and light-hearted subject matter. This style, popular during the reign of Louis XV, is characterised by a light palette, swirling, curved forms, asymmetry and ornamentation and had a major impact on architecture, interior design and the decorative arts as well as painting. A blend of elegance, wit and amorous themes, French Rococo art provided a form of escapism to a dreamy world of beauty in pastoral settings, parklands and boudoirs. The ‘fête galante’, a new type of poetic subject in which elegant young fashionably dressed couples wandered around ideal park gardens, courting and dancing, was pioneered. Artists were often inspired by the theatre for their characters and some became stage set and tapestry designers. The French Revolution brought renewed emphasis on the public and didactic purpose of art and, in response, artists adopted Neo-Classicism, depicting academic and historical subjects in ordered compositions.

The Rococo style spread across Europe during the 18th century and in Italy Venetian nobility of the 18th century commissioned artists to decorate their palaces with elaborate scenes employing fanciful allegorical language. Picturesque views were produced for a largely English clientele of gentlemen travelling on the Grand Tour. The important maritime republic of Venice with its vibrant culture and beautiful setting on the sea was a vital stop for grand tourists and panoramic portraits of the city were sold as souvenirs to the visiting nobility. The view paintings are supreme chronicles of Venice and as such immortalise its architectural beauty, glittering water, expansive skies as well as the spectacle of its carnivals and festivals. Although many of the views are idealised, exaggerated or enhanced for pictorial effect or to include as many buildings and sites as possible,the scenes are sharply detailed and include a wealth of anecdote from everyday Venetian life. Atmospheric, spontaneous, freely painted and often imaginary view paintings were less popular with the visiting tourists but represented the essence of Venice in an impressionistic manner.

Portraiture was a flourishing practice in Britain from the 16th century onwards, popular with royalty, the nobility, actors and the wealthy not least for its value in establishing status, conferring dignity and confirming worth. During the 18th & 19th centuries, a succession gifted British artists, building upon and inspired by the art of the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo, developed a style of grand portraiture which was to continue in popularity well into the 20th century. The ‘Grand Style’ was established by adapting elements of history painting with full-length portraits to produce glamorous portraits of splendour. Figures and lyrical landscapes were merged in ravishingly elegant and sensuous portraits. Many of these artists were prolific in their output of sensitive, or theatrical, portraits recording fashionable taste in Georgian and Victorian society, and painted in bravura techniques. British portraits often included or were sometimes only of children, portrayed in a decorative, light-hearted manner in an atmosphere of youthful innocence and charm. The Royal Academy of Art was founded in London in 1768 to provide art teaching and hold public exhibitions.

Romantic artists of the 19th century painted a wide variety of subjects, including historical, literary or legendary scenes and themes linked with horror or the supernatural. In addition, a distinctive form of spontaneous and exhilaratingly fresh landscape painting was developed by artists who worked directly from nature in the open air, studying the effects of light and the immediacy of the weather, with a mastery of colour and tone work that often appears sketchy and unfinished, which anticipated Impressionism. Artists were attracted to history painting because it was more prestigious than landscapes or domestic scenes and sought inspiration from earlier European history and legend often choosing to depict historical subjects which were relevant to contemporary events. Literature from Medieval to contemporary times, for example the writings of Dante, Shakespeare and Byron, provided much source material for subject matter. French and English Romantic art had close connections in the early 19th century and, although each Romantic artist differed from the others, it can be characterised by a belief in the value of individual experience.