Best Painting

The Calling of Saint Matthew is an oil painting created by Caravaggio around 1599 to 1600 for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. It depicts Christ entering a dim room and calling Matthew, traditionally identified as a tax collector seated among men counting money....

Primavera is a large tempera painting on panel made by Sandro Botticelli during the Italian Renaissance, probably in the late 1470s or early 1480s. Set in an orange grove, it brings together Venus, Cupid, the Three Graces, Mercury, Zephyrus, Chloris, and Flora in a complex mythological scene often a...

The Virgin of the Rocks is the title given to two closely related paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and his workshop, now held by the Louvre in Paris and the National Gallery in London. Both show the Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus, the young John the Baptist, and an angel grouped within an imagined rock...

Lady with an Ermine is a portrait painted by Leonardo da Vinci around 1489 to 1490, generally identified as Cecilia Gallerani, a young woman at the Milanese court and the mistress of Ludovico Sforza. She turns toward something outside the picture while holding a pale ermine, an animal that may carry...

The Raft of the Medusa is a monumental oil painting completed by Theodore Gericault in 1818 to 1819 and now displayed in the Louvre. It represents survivors of the French frigate Meduse, which ran aground off West Africa in 1816, leaving passengers and crew on a makeshift raft where many died. Geric...

The Return of the Prodigal Son is a late painting by Rembrandt, generally dated to the final years of his life and now held by the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. It depicts the conclusion of Christ's parable in which a wayward son returns home and is received by his father, while severa...

View of Delft is an oil painting by Johannes Vermeer, generally dated around 1660 to 1661, showing his native Dutch city from across the Kolk harbor. Recognizable buildings include the Schiedam Gate, Rotterdam Gate, and the tower of the Nieuwe Kerk, although Vermeer adjusted architectural and lighti...

The Milkmaid is an oil painting by Johannes Vermeer, usually dated around 1658 to 1660, depicting a domestic servant pouring milk into an earthenware container. The sparse room contains bread, pottery, a foot warmer, and other carefully observed household objects, while daylight enters through a win...

The Arnolfini Portrait is a 1434 oil painting on oak panel by Jan van Eyck, now in the National Gallery in London. It shows a richly dressed man and woman in a furnished interior in Bruges, accompanied by a small dog and reflected, with two additional figures, in a convex mirror. The identities of t...

Sunflowers commonly refers to two groups of still-life paintings made by Vincent van Gogh in Paris and Arles during the late 1880s. The better-known Arles series shows cut sunflowers at different stages of growth and decay arranged in simple vases, using a restricted range of yellows made possible b...

The Third of May 1808 is an oil painting completed by Francisco Goya in 1814, six years after French troops executed Spanish civilians during the occupation of Madrid. It centers on an illuminated prisoner facing an anonymous firing squad, with dead bodies in the foreground and other captives awaiti...

The Creation of Adam is a fresco painted by Michelangelo as part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in Vatican City, a project executed between 1508 and 1512. It illustrates the biblical creation of humanity through the nearly touching hands of God and Adam, with God borne through the air by a surroundin...

The Venus of Urbino is an oil painting completed by Titian in 1538 for Guidobaldo della Rovere and now held by the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It shows a nude woman reclining in a Venetian interior, meeting the viewer's gaze while attendants search through a chest in the background. The small dog, r...

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe is an oil painting completed by Édouard Manet in 1863. It presents a nude woman seated outdoors with two fully dressed men, while another woman bathes in the background, combining references to earlier European art with a deliberately contemporary setting. Rejected by the off...

Saturn Devouring His Son is a painting attributed to Francisco Goya and created around 1819 to 1823 as part of the Black Paintings in his house near Madrid. It depicts the mythological Saturn violently consuming one of his children, using an isolated figure, dark ground, and forceful brushwork. Orig...

Wheat Field with Crows is an oil-on-canvas landscape painted by Vincent van Gogh at Auvers-sur-Oise in July 1890. It shows a dark sky, a field of yellow wheat, branching paths, and a flock of black birds, using vigorous strokes and strong color contrasts. Although often described as his final painti...

Water Lilies is the collective title for a large body of paintings in which Claude Monet studied the lily pond at his home in Giverny. Works dated 1906 concentrate on the water's surface, reflections, floating plants, and shifting light, often reducing or eliminating the visible horizon. These paint...

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is an 1882 oil painting by Édouard Manet and his last major completed work. A barmaid stands before bottles, fruit, and flowers in a crowded Paris entertainment venue, while the mirror behind her reflects the auditorium and a male customer. Deliberate spatial ambiguities...

The Card Players is a series of five oil paintings made by Paul Cézanne during the 1890s. The compositions show Provençal working men absorbed in a card game, with versions ranging from two quiet figures to larger groups accompanied by spectators. Cézanne replaced anecdotal action with stable forms,...

Café Terrace at Night is an oil painting made by Vincent van Gogh in Arles in September 1888. It depicts the illuminated terrace of a café on the Place du Forum beneath a deep blue, star-filled sky, contrasting yellow artificial light with blue and violet nighttime tones. Van Gogh painted the scene...

The Jewish Bride is an oil painting by Rembrandt, generally dated to the mid-1660s and now held by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It shows a richly dressed man placing one hand on a woman's shoulder and another on her chest as she gently touches his hand. The sitters' identities remain uncertain, whi...

Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (c. 1503-1519) shows three generations of the Holy Family in a pyramidal composition and is considered one of his supreme achievements, now in the Louvre, Paris.

Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow is an abstract oil painting made by Piet Mondrian in 1930. Black horizontal and vertical lines divide a white field into unequal rectangles, with selected areas filled in primary colors and black. The work exemplifies Mondrian's Neo-Plastic approach, developed i...

The Slave Ship is an 1840 oil painting by J. M. W. Turner, formally titled Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On. It shows a ship moving into a violent, blood-red sea while shackled human figures struggle in the foreground, addressing the murder of enslaved people for fina...

Oath of the Horatii is a large oil painting completed by Jacques-Louis David in 1784, before the French Revolution, and now held by the Louvre. It depicts three Roman brothers extending their arms toward swords held by their father, while women and children grieve at the side. Its severe architectur...

Bedroom in Arles is the title given to three closely related oil paintings by Vincent van Gogh showing his bedroom in the Yellow House in Arles, France. He painted the first version in 1888 and later produced two repetitions, varying details such as the pictures on the wall. The tilted perspective,...

The Entombment of Christ is a large oil painting created by Caravaggio around 1603 to 1604 as an altarpiece for the Chiesa Nuova in Rome; it is now in the Vatican Pinacoteca. It shows Christ's body being carried toward a stone slab by a tightly grouped set of mourners and attendants. Dramatic lighti...

Mont Sainte-Victoire is a mountain near Aix-en-Provence that Paul Cézanne repeatedly depicted in paintings, watercolors, and drawings from the late nineteenth century until near the end of his life. Rather than one painting, the title commonly identifies a broad series showing the mountain from chan...

Starry Night Over the Rhône is an oil painting made by Vincent van Gogh in Arles in September 1888, several months before the better-known The Starry Night. It depicts the Rhône beneath a dark blue sky, with gaslights and stars reflected across the water and a couple standing in the foreground. Van...