Objects, images, descriptions and audio guide.
Jutting from a dune in the foreground, the massive silvery trunk of a dead tree leads the eye across a waterfall and toward a distant sunlit field where travelers and a …
An amateur meteorologist, John Constable was most at home painting meticulously observed cloud formations, weather conditions, and natural light effects. He believed an …
Cole visited Italy in 1831 and made a small pencil sketch of this vista of Florence shortly before sunset. In his New York studio six years later, he transformed the dra…
Like Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy (on view nearby), Vincent van Gogh painted this autumnal landscape while living in a psychiatric hospital near Saint-Rém…
Set in rural Long Island before the Civil War, Mount's complex painting presents an African American laborer listening intently to a fiddle tune enjoyed by white men. Wh…
A skilled horticulturalist as well as an artist, Claude Monet spent the last 30 years of his life painting the private garden he designed and helped cultivate at his hom…
At the age of 25, Rembrandt moved from his hometown of Leiden to the bustling city of Amsterdam. Within a few years he had become one of the city’s most successful portr…
Highly prolific, Inness created more than 1,000 works during a career lasting 50 years. Dated just two years before his death, Sunny Autumn Day epitomizes his late style…
While the attribution remains hotly debated, this work exemplifies how Italian portraiture of the 1500s could articulate family alliances through marriage. The inscripti…
The troubadour, a medieval traveling poet and entertainer, was a popular subject in 19th-century French art. Associated with chivalry and courtly love, the theme reflect…
Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, wears a crescent on her forehead, also identifying her as the moon goddess. Diana lived apart from men, accompanied by a group of n…
Painted at Pont-Aven in northwest France, this depiction of a nude figure throwing herself into the sea suggests a metaphor for a modern European woman forsaking civiliz…
Having never ventured outside France, Henri Rousseau derived his jungle scenes from reading travel books and visiting the Paris botanical garden. He placed this imaginar…
Fire consumed London’s famous Houses of Parliament on the night of October 16, 1834, and people gathered along the banks of the river Thames to gaze in awe at the horrif…
Because Peale served under General Washington and befriended him during the Revolutionary War, he was an ideal candidate to commemorate Washington's important early vict…
Priceless objects crowd the corner of a stone table in Kalf's composition. Pieces like the silver platter, delicate glasswares, thick rumpled carpet, and a Chinese porce…
Saint Andrew’s efforts to introduce Christianity to Greece in the first century CE were met with hostility from local authorities. He was sentenced to die on the cross b…
This deceptively simple composition represents a complex meditation on the Holy Family’s role in the redemption of humanity. At the center, Mary presents the Christ chil…
Prior to the 1600s, large, full-length portraits of wealthy clients usually emphasized the trappings of status above any other qualities. The accuracy of the likeness an…
The Protestant rulers of Saxony commissioned this animated hunt scene, set near their residence seen in the background, Hartenfels Castle (in eastern Germany). John Fred…
In this dramatic test of faith from the Old Testament book of Genesis, Abraham agrees to slay his son Isaac on God’s command. As Abraham raises the knife, an angel sudde…
A vigorous portrayal of two peregrine falcons with their fresh duck prey, John James Audubon's painting relates to his groundbreaking Birds of America publication that s…
An extremely wealthy linen and silk merchant in Haarlem, Tieleman Roosterman was 36 years old when Frans Hals painted his portrait. Unlike many Dutch painters of the per…
West was the first American artist to study in Italy, where he spent three years before permanently settling in London. He so admired the artistic ideals of the Italian …