Objets, images, descriptions et audioguide.
As part of his work for the British court, Benjamin West produced several compositions celebrating the strength of the nation's economy. In this example, women in classi…
Saint Jerome (about ad 347–420) translated biblical texts into Latin. Although he sometimes appears as a scholar in his study, Ribera represents him here as a penitent w…
This painting is from a nine-panel decorative series showing children playing in two of Paris’s most spacious parks: the Tuileries Gardens and the Bois de Boulogne. It d…
This painting powerfully illustrates changes in taste over time. Before it was even completed, the painting was purchased for the considerable sum of £1,000 by a newly w…
Rather than depicting a single moment in time, this gold-ground painting symbolically encapsulates Christ. Seated on a rich throne, the monumental Virgin holds the Chris…
Johann Georg Platzer specialized in small, highly detailed paintings scaled for a connoisseur’s cabinet. At the center of this composition is an idealized portrait of th…
In the spirit of the Italian Renaissance, Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1466–1536), the celebrated Dutch humanist and scholar, embraced ancient Greek and Roman literature and…
A cassone was a wooden chest used for the storage of clothing, an essential piece of furniture in Italian homes during the Renaissance and often produced in matched sets…
One of the most celebrated academic painters of his time, Bouguereau underscores the moral virtues of the Italian peasants in this painting by depicting the dome of St. …
In the pitch black of night, two groups of men are gathered in a forest. To the left, travelers apprehensively pause to watch a magician conjure terrifying apparitions. …
The seemingly weightless figures, the startling color combinations, and the moody, imprecise setting all show El Greco’s interest in conveying the intense spirituality o…
At dusk, Rosa's hags gather around a cauldron. Above their incantations soars a conjured skeleton holding an hourglass symbolizing the brevity of life. In its left hand,…
Rosa's first scene depicts a young witch who plunges her knife into a writhing amphibian at dawn. The dark clouds of daybreak and anthropomorphic crags provide a gloomy …
The figures of Peace (burning the weapons of war) and Justice (holding a sword and scales) embrace in a quiet landscape. The Latin inscription under the antique urn read…
King George III commissioned more than 80 paintings from West, including this portrait that celebrates his military leadership by presenting him in a suit of armor. Such…
Struck by a mysterious illness, Antiochus lies in bed near death. His grieving father, who has recently taken Stratonice as his wife, summons a doctor. Noticing that the…
This small panel was once part of a devotional portrait diptych (a hinged two-panel painting). The Christ child’s attention seems drawn to something outside the picture …
O'Keeffe is best known for close-up flower subjects whose magnified forms fill the entire space of each canvas. Likely inspired by similar compositions in modern photogr…
Stories of Christ’s childhood and adolescence became increasingly popular during the Counter-Reformation because they were easily understood by a broad public. Rather th…
Allston’s portrait of his London banker and business agent explores the experience of reverie. Williams looks off absently, perhaps inspired by the pictures in the book …
Painted on a remote island in Polynesia a year before the artist's death, The Call belongs to a series of late works that explore the mysteries of life and death. Two wo…
This painting may be Renoir's earliest signed canvas. Its sensitive display of color and light communicates an ideal of delicate, youthful beauty. The luminous tones of …
This large icon of a tender embrace between the Virgin Mary and Christ likely hung on a Greek Orthodox church’s iconostasis, a screen separating the congregation from th…
Oudry used a starkly simple composition and sterile background to emphasize his virtuosity in depicting textures, a highly desirable skill of still-life painters at this…