The ‘Bucintoro’ was a great Venetian vessel of state. Each year on Ascension Day, the Doge (the ruler of Venice) performed a ceremonial ‘wedding’ by casting a gold ring into the water, acknowledging Venice’s dependency on the sea for trade. Canaletto’s exquisitely detailed paintings were popular among English visitors looking for souvenirs from their Grand Tours of Europe – a right of passage for any eighteenth-century gentleman.

This is a noisy painting: we can hear the trumpets blaring and the crowd cheering as David processes in triumph into Jerusalem. He holds aloft the severed head of the eight-foot giant Goliath, who he defeated against all odds through sheer cunning and bravery. Poussin presents the scene as though on a stage in a theatre, with the actors set against an impressive backdrop of Classical architecture.

Ruisdael made many sketches of the landscapes outside Haarlem, which he reworked in his studio to create ideal painted compositions. The white highlight of the water striking rocks conveys drama and movement. Like Poussin’s ‘Triumph of David’, this painting awakens our senses. We are transported by the artist into the scene to hear the overwhelming power of nature in action.

Mary Beale is the only seventeenth-century female artist represented in the Dulwich Picture Gallery collection. Beale had a thriving portrait practice in Pall Mall and excelled at capturing sympathetic likenesses. The sitter holds an anatomical drawing, which suggests an identification to a doctor. Is this perhaps the physician-poet Sir Richard Blackmore (d.1729)? Or Sir Edmund King (1629–1709)? More work is needed to investigate these possibilities.

Is this girl a flower seller? A traveller? A courtesan? The artist’s only daughter, Francisca, might have been his model. In 1671 she entered a convent and dedicated herself to Saint Rose of Lima. Murillo’s gentle, earthy tones transport us to the warmth of a May day in Seville. The yellow of the girl’s dress creates the effect of her being as bright as the sun, which – together with the roses – symbolises new life and hope.