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.
Painted in the final years of the life of Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Two Circles presents the artist at work before a canvas, his face rendered…
Completed around 1635, this dramatic Old Testament scene captures the precise moment when a divine hand inscribes a warning on the wall before the…
Painted in 1632, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp documents a public dissection performed by the presiding officer of the Amsterdam Guild…
Painted in 1659, this introspective self-portrait captures Rembrandt van Rijn during a period of financial hardship and personal reflection,…
Painted near the end of Rembrandt van Rijn's life, this large-scale biblical composition depicts the emotional reunion of a repentant son with his…
Rembrandt van Rijn completed this group portrait of six cloth industry officials in 1662, producing one of the most psychologically engaging…
Painted in 1894 as part of the Love section of the Frieze of Life, Madonna presents a female figure at the moment of conception as a site of…
The Portrait of Margareta van Eyck, dated 1439, is among the earliest known portraits of a painter wife by her husband in Northern European art,…
This intimate devotional panel depicts the Virgin Mary enthroned beneath a canopy in a domestic interior, nursing the Christ Child in a scene that…
This small and precisely observed portrait depicts Baudouin de Lannoy, a Burgundian nobleman and diplomat in the service of Duke Philip the Good,…
The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, completed in 1436, is a large devotional panel painted for the church of Saint Donatian in Bruges,…
The Portrait of a Man with Carnation is a small but precisely executed panel depicting an unidentified male sitter holding a pink carnation, a…
This intimate portrait of an unidentified man wearing a large red chaperon is widely considered a possible self-portrait of van Eyck himself,…
The Ghent Altarpiece is a monumental polyptych completed in 1432 that stands as one of the most celebrated and historically significant works of…
This small and remarkably detailed panel depicts Saint Jerome surrounded by scholarly objects in a compact study, demonstrating Jan van Eyck…
The Arnolfini Portrait, dated 1434, depicts a wealthy couple in a richly appointed Flemish interior and is renowned for its intricate symbolism…
The Crucifixion of Saint Peter is the final major fresco painted by Michelangelo, completed when the artist was in his mid-seventies, depicting…
This double-scene panel from the Sistine Chapel ceiling presents both the temptation of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Paradise, separated…
