Natoire’s painting is a masterful example of a fête galante, a popular theme in 18th Century French painting. Learn more about this painting, ranging from its Rococo Palette and pentimenti to its original dimensions and art historical context.

Venus Requesting Vulcan to Make Arms for Aeneas is one of many paintings in art history featuring this ancient theme. Learn about the Carle Vanloo version on display at the Hood, its classical antecedents and related paintings by Vanloo’s contemporaries, Natoire and Boucher.

Look while you listen and learn about this landscape, painted by Claude Lorrain, one of the Seventeenth Century painters instrumental in creating this genre.

Click through all six facets — with seven brief audio files — to learn more about this painting by one of 17th Century Holland’s finest still-life artists.

The Sculpture Gallery is the third object in the Hood’s European Collection to have multiple audio files. Soon it will be possible for visitors with smartphones to look and listen while in the Albright Gallery.

This portrait of Robert Clements is one of two paintings in the Hood’s collection by Batoni. Like its companion work, William Legge, Second Earl of Dartmouth, this painting depicts a Grand Tourist during his visit to Rome. Both young aristocrats strike a casual pose while surrounded by symbols of erudition and the classical world.

Click the link below to explore all five facets of the object and hear the audio guide.

We have just added this facet and seven others to the Virgin and Child with Saints by Perugino. It includes multiple images as well as eight audio files. Visit the entire Perugino object by clicking on all eight facets.

Allegory of Touch, which ranks among the greatest early works of Giordano presently in the United States, now features an audio guide. Go here to listen. This audio guide is one among many that will soon be available via smartphone in the Hood’s Albright Gallery. The first smartphones to be fully supported at the Hood are the iPhone, Android and Blackberry, but visitors are invited to try any mobile device with an internet connection. To learn more about this project and see the results of the first pilot test, go here.

This painting, one of the most recent additions to the Hood’s European collection, depicts a scene from Roman history and was exhibited at the Paris Salon. To learn more, click on the title (above in blue). If you are in Hanover, stop by to see it in the Albright gallery and listen to the audio tour that is coming soon.

The latest painting in the European Collection, The Sculpture Gallery, depicts one of many interior scenes painted by Alma-Tadema. Inspired by visits to Herculaneum and Pompeii in the 1860s, Alma-Tadema precisely captures the architecture of Roman times. An audio guide on the painting will be available soon.