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Painting story
Agnus Dei by Zurbarán
Agnus Dei (c. 1635 to 1640) by Francisco de Zurbarán shows a lamb with its feet bound, lying on a stone ledge against a dark background: the Lamb…
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 Analysis articles
Painting story
Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose by Zurbarán
Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose (1633) is the only still life Francisco de Zurbarán signed and dated: three groups of objects in a row…
Painting story
Frida Kahlo Paintings
Frida Kahlo painted around 140 pictures, many of them of herself: her broken spine, her marriage to Diego Rivera, her lost pregnancies and her two…
Painting story
Victoria Mortis by Owe Zerge
Victoria Mortis (1921) by Owe Zerge shows a young man playing chess against Death while an hourglass marks the remaining time. The painting turns…
Painting story
L'Apparition by Gustave Moreau
L'Apparition (c. 1876 to 1877) by Gustave Moreau shows Salome, just after her dance, pointing at the severed head of John the Baptist as it floats…
Painting story
La Belle Dame sans Merci by Frank Dicksee
La Belle Dame sans Merci (c. 1901) by Frank Dicksee shows a knight in armour walking beside a fairy lady on horseback, from John Keats's ballad of…
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 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,…
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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 100 most famous paintingsThe ranked list, with the story behind every entry.
