Loading cart…
No products in the cart.
Painting story
Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse
Circe Invidiosa (1892) by John William Waterhouse shows the enchantress Circe pouring green poison into the sea to turn her rival Scylla into a…
Painting Stories
The meaning and history of famous paintings: what they show, where the originals hang, and how each one is recreated by hand in oil on canvas.
Painting story
The Cursed Woman by Octave Tassaert
The Cursed Woman (La Femme damnée) is an 1859 oil painting by Octave Tassaert: four nude women drifting down through blue air beneath a gold…
Painting story
Anna Passini on the Balcony of the Palazzo Priuli
Anna Passini on the Balcony of the Palazzo Priuli shows the painter's young wife on a carved Gothic balcony above a Venetian canal in spring,…
Painting story
The Surprise of the Master's Unexpected Arrival
The Surprise of the Master's Unexpected Arrival shows a dining room full of servants caught mid-party by the master and mistress of the house, who…
Painting story
Witches' Sabbath by Goya
Witches' Sabbath (El Aquelarre) shows the Devil as a great black goat crowned with leaves, receiving children from a circle of witches under a…
Painting story
The Nightmare by Fuseli
The Nightmare shows a woman asleep across a bed with her head thrown back, an incubus squatting on her chest and looking out at the viewer, and a…
Painting story
The Lady's Death by Hogarth
The last scene of Marriage A-la-Mode: in her father's house by old London Bridge the Countess has taken laudanum after reading of Silvertongue's…
Painting story
The Bagnio by Hogarth
The fifth scene of Marriage A-la-Mode: in a room at the Turk's Head bagnio after the masquerade, the Earl has drawn his sword on the lawyer and…
Painting story
The Toilette by Hogarth
The fourth scene of Marriage A-la-Mode: the old Earl is dead, the new Countess holds a morning levée while her hair is dressed, an Italian singer…
Painting story
The Inspection by Hogarth
The third scene of Marriage A-la-Mode: the Viscount brings a very young girl to a quack doctor's consulting room and complains that the pills have…
Painting story
The Tête à Tête by Hogarth
The second scene of Marriage A-la-Mode: it is twenty past noon, the Viscount has come home with a broken sword and a woman's cap in his pocket,…
Painting story
The Marriage Settlement by Hogarth
The first of Hogarth's six scenes of Marriage A-la-Mode: the Earl of Squander sells his son, a City Alderman buys a title, the money is already on…
Painting story
Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin
Isle of the Dead shows a rowing boat carrying a coffin and a figure in white toward an island of pale rock and black cypresses, with tombs cut…
Painting story
The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau
The Sleeping Gypsy shows a wandering musician asleep on the desert sand under a full moon with her mandolin and water jar beside her, while a lion…
Painting story
Composition VIII by Kandinsky
Composition VIII arranges circles, triangles, ruled lines and a tilted chequerboard on a pale ground, with a great black and violet circle in a…
Painting story
The Triumph of Death by Bruegel
The Triumph of Death shows an army of skeletons overrunning a burning landscape and driving the living, king, cardinal, soldier, peasant and…
Painting story
The Song of the Lark by Jules Breton
The Song of the Lark shows a barefoot peasant girl with a sickle in her hand, stopped in a stubble field at sunrise with her head up and her lips…
Top 10 artists
All artists A to Z
Top paintings
See the Top 50
Keep exploring
Curated collectionsOdyssey, Magic and Witchcraft, Famous Women, Landscapes and more.Artists A to ZEvery painter in the catalogue, with an archive of their works.Art movementsRenaissance to Expressionism: what defines each and who led it.Top 50 most famous paintingsThe ranked list, with the story behind every entry.
