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Painting story
The Building of the Trojan Horse
Explore Domenico Tiepolo’s Building of the Trojan Horse: workmen, a painter, scaffolding and the difference between London’s sketch and the later…
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
The Widower by Luke Fildes
A labourer holds his sick child in a dark cottage while the other children play: Luke Fildes’s Widower of 1876.
Painting story
The Haywain Triptych
The world is a haystack and everyone grabs what they can: Bosch’s triptych of greed, from the Fall to a Hell still under construction.
Painting story
The Passing of Robin Hood by N. C. Wyeth
The dying Robin Hood draws his bow to shoot one last arrow through the window: N. C. Wyeth’s 1917 illustration.
Painting story
Procession of the Trojan Horse
The Trojans haul the great wooden horse into their own city: Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s lively oil sketch of about 1760.
Painting story
Garden of Earthly Delights
Paradise, a garden of pleasures and a musical Hell: Bosch’s triptych read panel by panel, from Adam and Eve to the tree-man.
Painting story
Blind Pew
Explore N. C. Wyeth’s Blind Pew: the searching hand, complete figure, stick, fallen hat and the Treasure Island episode behind the 1911 painting.
Painting story
Sunday Reading in a Rural School
Explore Bogdanov-Belsky’s Sunday Reading: the reader, open book, listening villagers and child holding a page in the Russian Museum painting.
Painting story
The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner by Edwin Henry Landseer
A collie rests its head on its master’s coffin in Landseer’s The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner, painted in 1837 and praised by Ruskin.
Painting story
The Black Brunswicker by John Everett Millais
A soldier of the Black Brunswickers says goodbye to his love before Waterloo while she tries to hold the door shut: Millais, 1860.
Painting story
Mental Arithmetic
Solve the problem in Bogdanov-Belsky’s Mental Arithmetic and explore the pupils, Rachinsky’s school and the thinking boy in his 1895 painting.
Painting story
Dignity and Impudence by Edwin Henry Landseer
A serious bloodhound and a cheeky little terrier share a kennel in Landseer’s Dignity and Impudence, painted in 1839.
Painting story
The Faithful Hound
A hound lifts its head beside a fallen knight and horse. Landseer turns the still battlefield into a scene of canine loyalty and grief.
Painting story
The Magic Circle by Waterhouse
In The Magic Circle, Waterhouse portrayed a sorceress in the act of tracing a protective or conjuring circle on the ground, surrounded by the…
Painting story
The Transport of Christ to the Sepulchre
Explore Ciseri’s Transport of Christ to the Sepulchre: the hanging arm, strained shroud, bearers and mourners in the Madonna del Sasso painting.
Painting story
At School Doors
A ragged village boy stands in the doorway of a rural school, looking in at the lesson he cannot join. Painted in 1897.
Painting story
The Monarch of the Glen by Edwin Henry Landseer
A twelve-point stag on a misty Highland hillside: Landseer’s 1851 icon of Scotland, saved for the National Galleries of Scotland in 2017.
Painting story
Medea by Evelyn De Morgan
The sorceress Medea walks through a marble palace with a small vase of poison, troubled rather than raging, in De Morgan’s 1889 painting.
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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.
