Painting

These are essentially questions about paintings and painters, that don't simply ask who painted one or more particular paintings.

The Most Expensive Paintings

For reasons I'm not entirely sure about (it may be something to do with the price being more verifiable, and/or auction prices being a better gauge of true value than a private sale), it's important to distinguish between the highest price ever paid for a painting and the highest price paid at auction.

Year	Sale	Price (approx)		Title		Artist
2017	Auction	$450 million		Salvator Mundi (The Saviour of the World)		Leonardo da Vinci
2015	Private	$300 million		Interchange		Willem de Kooning
2011	Private	$250+ million		The Card Players		Paul Cézanne
2015	Auction	$170 million		Les Femmes d'Alger (The Women of Algiers)		Pablo Picasso

Salvator Mundi is currently (as of April 2018) the most expensive painting ever. Previously, the most expensive painting was Interchange – although Wikipedia notes that The Card Players (sold four years previously) may have fetched a price that came very close to that paid for Interchange.

According to the same Wikipedia page, four other paintings have been sold privately for higher prices than that paid for Les Femmes d'Alger.

Before Salvator Mundi, the most expensive painting ever sold at auction was Les Femmes d'Alger.

The highest price paid for a painting by a living artist:

2018

Auction

$90.3 million

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)

David Hockney

Les Trois Grandes Dames

Named as "the three great ladies" of Impressionism, by the French journalist, art critic, historian and novelist Gustave Geffroy (1855–1926):

Married to a noted printmaker (by whose surname she is known), who disapproved of the Impressionist movement and was said by their son to have suppressed her work		Marie Braquemond
Born in the USA, but spent much of her adult life in France: a long–term collaborator of Edgar Degas, who painted her portrait (she hated it)		Mary Cassatt
Great–great–niece of Jean–Honoré Fragonard, and sister–in–law of Édouard Manet, who painted her portrait (she married his brother Eugène)		Berthe Morisot

Paintings

Title of a famous painting by Manet, also applied to one by Degas (the latter being properly called A Sketch of a French Café, later called L'Absinthe)		The Absinthe Drinker
Fresco by Giotto, dated 1305–6 – one of a series on the life and passion of Jesus, in the Arena Chapel in Padua – which shows Halley's Comet as the Star of Bethlehem (after the painter is believed to have observed it in 1301) – leading to the 1986 ESA space probe being named after him		Adoration of the Magi
Painting by Holbein, with a distorted skull in the foreground only seen in the right proportions from a particular angle		The Ambassadors
Matisse painting reportedly hung upside down for 47 days in 1961 by the New York Museum of Modern Art		Le Bateau (The Boat)
1893 painting by the Pre–Raphaelite, John William Waterhouse: inspired by an 1819 poem by Keats, of the same (French) title, about a fairy femme fatale		La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Gainsborough (c. 1770): sold in 1920 to the American railway pioneer Henry E. Huntington, reportedly for a record price of $728,800 (£182,200), causing a public outcry in Britain; can be seen in his collection at San Marino, California (Los Angeles County)		The Blue Boy
John Everett Millais (1871): depicts a scene on the sea front at Budleigh Salterton, Devon; came to epitomise the culture of heroic imperialism in late Victorian Britain		The Boyhood of Raleigh
Painting by Degas: stolen from a museum in Marseille in 2009, found during a "random search" in the luggage compartment of a bus near Paris		Les Choristes
The most famous section of Michelangelo's ceiling to the Sistine Chapel: reproduced in countless contexts, including (a detail) in the title sequence to ITV's The South Bank Show		The Creation of Adam
Work by Banksy (one of a series), which (partly) shredded itself after being sold at Sotheby's in October 2018 – after which it was renamed		Girl with Balloon
Matisse: controversial portrait of his wife, 1905		The Green Stripe
Picasso painting of the bombing of a Spanish town during the Civil War; originally exhibited at the Paris International Exposition in 37; then toured Scandinavia and arrived in London the day after the signing of the Munich agreement; sent to the USA to raise funds for Spanish refugees, and entrusted at Picasso's request to the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA); returned to Spain in 1981; kept initially in the Prado, but moved in 1992 (with the rest of the 20th century collection) to the Reina Sofia (also in Madrid)		Guernica
Series of paintings and engravings by Hogarth, 1731–2: shows the story of a young woman, M. (Moll or Mary) Hackabout, who arrives in London from the country and becomes a prostitute; inspired a TV film (Channel 4, 2006) and an opera by the British composer Iain Bell (2013)		A Harlot's Progress
Willy Lott's House (or cottage, or farm) is depicted in (Constable)		The Hay Wain
1872 painting of the harbour at Le Havre (his home town) by Monet, said to have given the name to the Impressionist movement (exhibited at the 'Exhibition of the Impressionists' in 1874)		Impression, Sunrise
1888 painting by the Pre–Raphaelite John William Waterhouse, on an Arthurian theme: inspired by an 1832 poem of the same title by Alfred, Lord Tennyson		The Lady of Shalott
Major work by Michelangelo, on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel		The Last Judgement
Famous fresco (by Leonardo) in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria Della Grazie, Milan		The Last Supper
Title given by Banksy's representatives to his painting Girl with Balloon, after it shredded itself on being sold at auction in 2018 (fetching £1,042,000)		Love is in the Bin
Series of six paintings by Hogarth, 1743–5: The Marriage Settlement, The Tête à Tête, The Inspection, The Toilette, The Bagnio, The Lady's Death (this series was not as well received as the earlier A Harlot's Progress or A Rake's Progress)		Marriage à–la–mode
La Gioconda (from the name of the supposed sitter – the wife of Francisco del Giaconda, a moderately successful Florentine cloth and silk merchant – née Gherardini) is better known as		Mona Lisa
Stolen from The Louvre in 1911, and returned there in 1914 after being found in Florence
David Hockney's 1970–1 portrait of the textile designer Celia Birtwell, her (more famous) fashion designer husband, and one of their cats		Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy
The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch (Rembrandt, 1642): popular title		The Night Watch
1931 painting by Salvador Dali, showing three pocket watches apparently melting in a stylised landscape, and one not melting but apparently covered by ants; sometimes known as Melting Clocks, Soft Watches or Melting Watches		The Persistence of Memory
Italian title of a famous painting by Botticelli – meaning 'Spring'		Primavera
The 1819 painting that made the name of the French painter Théodore Géricault: depicting the aftermath of a famous incident that occurred in 1816, when a French frigate ran aground off the north–west coast of Africa (Géricault died in 1824, aged 32)		The Raft of the Medusa
Series of eight paintings by Hogarth (1732–3, published from engravings in 1734): inspired a ballet by Gavin Gordon, choreographed by Ninette de Valois (1935) and an opera by Stravinsky (also 1951)		A Rake's Progress
1844 painting by Turner, now in the National Gallery: shows a railway locomotive crossing a bridge (identified as Maidenhead Bridge over the Thames); a hare is depicted running in front of the train		Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway
Episode from the legendary history of Rome (traditionally dated to 750 BC) that has inspired works by Poussin (two versions, 1634–5), Rubens (1635–40), David (1799), Degas (c. 1861–2, after Poussin) and Picasso (several versions, 1962–3), among others		The Rape of the Sabine Women
The only painting sold by Van Gogh in his lifetime		The Red Vineyard
Popular name for Velasquez's The Toilet of Venus (a.k.a. Venus at her Mirror, or Venus and Cupid) – after the stately home in County Durham where it was displayed from 1813 to 1906 (now in the National Gallery, and a copy can be seen in the house; the National Gallery original was badly damaged in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson)		The Rokeby Venus
One of fewer than 20 known works by Leonardo da Vinci, and the only one in private hands: became the world's most expensive painting when it was sold for just over $450 million in November 2017		Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World)
Series of images – 3 paintings, 2 pastels, 1 lithograph – by Edvard Munch, 1893–1910, depicting an agonised figure against a blood–red sky; one was stolen from the Norwegian National Gallery in 1994 (recovered later the same year); one from the Munch Museum (Oslo) in 2004, recovered in 2006		The Scream
Magritte, 1946: showing a man in an overcoat and a bowler hat, with his face almost hidden by an apple		The Son of Man
Van Gogh painting sold for £24m in 1987		Sunflowers
Magritte, 1938: a railway locomotive, in full steam, emerges from a fireplace		Time Transfixed
Famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, depicting a nude male figure with arms and legs in two positions, superimposed on a circle and a square; named after a Roman architect of the 1st century BC, on whose description it's based; used in the title sequence of the long–running (1963–98) ITV documentary series World in Action		Vitruvian Man
Arrangement in grey and black, no. 1: better known as		Whistler's Mother
Constable's A Scene on the River Stour became known as		The White Horse

People

The Series of the Months (often referred to as The Months of the Year) (1565) is the supreme achievement of		Pieter Breugel (the Elder)
The Maya in Goya's two paintings (clothed and naked)		Duchess of Alva
Depicted 'The Great Red Dragon' in various scenes from the Book of Revelation – when commissioned to illustrate the books of the Bible		William Blake
English painter and critic who painted Napoleon as a prisoner and became Director of the National Gallery in 1855		Sir Charles Locke Eastgate
Painter of The Disasters of War; became completely deaf in 1792		Francisco Goya
Singer, often painted by Toulouse–Lautrec wearing long black gloves		Yvette Guilbert
Sons of Pieter Breugel: Pieter the Younger and		Jan
US President painted by Pietro Annigoni		John F. Kennedy
Austrian artist (born 1862): enjoyed a 'golden phase' in the early 20th century, when he used gold leaf in many of his paintings		Gustav Klimt
South Bank Show: two hands come from The Creation of Adam by		Michelangelo
Subject of A Very Gallant Gentleman (1913), by J. C. Dolland (the title echoing his epitaph)		Capt. Lawrence Oates
Has had more portraits painted of her than any other person		Queen Elizabeth II
Black on Maroon, vandalised at London's Tate Modern in October 2012, was by (Russian–born American painter)		Mark Rothko
Ceiling of the Banqueting House, Whitehall		Rubens
Sandham Memorial Chapel, in the village of Burghclere, Berkshire, was built in the 1920s to accommodate a series of paintings by		Stanley Spencer
1766 treatise The Anatomy of the Horse		George Stubbs
The Langlois Bridge at Arles, in southern France (a drawbridge on a canal), is the subject of four oil paintings, one watercolour and four drawings by		Vincent van Gogh
Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers album: sleeve design; and the Stones' tongue logo		Andy Warhol
We Two Boys Together Clinging (Hockney, 1961): named after a poem by		Walt Whitman

Other

Famous British beer, bottles of which appear in Manet's A Bar at the Folies Bergeres		Bass
Mr. & Mrs. Clark and Percy (David Hockney, 1970–1): Percy is a		Cat
El Paradiso (Paradise) – the largest 'old master' in the world – is in		Doge's Palace, Venice
Hubert and Jan van Eyck: famous altarpiece at		Ghent (St. Bavon's )
The English painters Nicholas Hilliard (c. 1547–1619), Richard Cosway (1742–1821) and George Engleheart (1750–1829) were famous for		Miniatures
In Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (c. 1486), Venus is standing on a		(Clam) shell
Ana Maria, who frequently modelled for Dali in the mid–1920s: relation to the artist		Sister
Frescoes depicting God's Creation of the World, God's relationship with Mankind, Mankind's fall from God's Grace (including "the creation of Adam")		Sistine ceiling
River that features in many paintings by Constable (including The Hay Wain)		Stour
Collection housed at Hertford House in London's West End		Wallace
The world's finest collection of the drawings of Leonardo is at		Windsor Castle

© Haydn Thompson 2017–23