Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

Johannes Vermeer · 1650

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Scottish National Gallery

Edinburgh

The Skating Minister gliding across a frozen loch, with Vermeer, Velazquez and Titian a few rooms away. Free, on the Mound between the two halves of Edinburgh, in Playfair’s neoclassical rooms.

What to see

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
Johannes Vermeer · 1650
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary is an oil painting finished in 1655 by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer. It is now in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. It is the largest painting by Vermeer and one of the very few with an overt religious subject. The story of Christ visiting the household of the two sisters Mary of Bethany and Martha goes back to the New Testament. The work has also been called Christ in the House of Mary and Martha.

The Skating Minister
Henry Raeburn · 1795
The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch, better known by its shorter title The Skating Minister, is a late 18th-century oil painting attributed to Henry Raeburn, now in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. Because the painting was passed down through the subject's family, it was practically unknown until 1949, but has since become one of Scotland's best-known paintings.

Bust of Carlo Antonio del Pozzo
Gian Lorenzo Bernini · 1622
The Bust of Carlo Antonio del Pozzo is a sculptural portrait by the Italian artist Gianlorenzo Bernini. It is in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Niagara Falls, from the American Side
Frederic Edwin Church · 1867
Niagara Falls, from the American Side is a painting by the American artist Frederic Edwin Church (1826 to 1900). Completed in 1867, it is based on preliminary sketches made by the artist at Niagara Falls and on a sepia photograph.

An Allegory of the Old and New Testaments
Hans Holbein the Younger · 1530
An Allegory of the Old and New Testaments is an allegorical and typological oil on panel painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, painted between 1532 and 1536. In 1981, the painting was acquired by the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.

Collections

At the heart of the National Gallery's collection is a group of paintings transferred from the Royal Scottish Academy. This includes masterpieces by Jacopo Bassano, Van Dyck and Giambattista Tiepolo. The National Gallery did not receive its own purchase grant until 1903. In the Gallery's main ground floor rooms are displayed a number of major large-scale canvases such as Benjamin West's Alexander III of Scotland Rescued from the Fury of a Stag (1786), Rubens's The Feast of Herod (1633 or c.1637-38) and a pair of paintings by Titian, Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto (purchased jointly with the National Gallery, London). The Scottish National Gallery has also jointly acquired one of Canova's sculptures of The Three Graces with the Victoria and Albert Museum.