Paintings

John Philip Simpson. The man in this painting is chained, but its model Ira Aldridge was born free. An American actor celebrated in Europe for playing Othello, he also spoke against slavery.

Vincent van Gogh. In 1886 Van Gogh moved to Paris, where his brother Theo dealt in paintings. Encounters with Impressionism and new artists changed his palette.

Edgar Degas. Around 1870 Degas did not yet have access backstage at the Paris Opéra. For his first dance-class painting he staged the scene with dancers posing in his studio.

Lucas Cranach the Elder. This Eve was paired with an Adam. Together the two narrow panels presented the first humans at the moment of temptation.

Winslow Homer. After the American Civil War Homer increasingly turned from magazine illustration towards oil painting. He painted this croquet game in 1866.

Unidentified Teotihuacan painter. This fragment once belonged to a painted procession in a wealthy residential compound at Teotihuacan, a city in central Mexico. The mural dates to 500–550.

Unidentified Japanese painters. Maize and red cockscombs occupy six panels of a gold screen made in the mid-seventeenth century. A modern viewer may first respond to a striking plant design.

Xia Chang. Xia Chang painted this bamboo in 1441 for a friend who had planted a grove beside his retirement home.

Yi Jeong, known as Taneun. Yi Jeong, known as Taneun, belonged to the royal family and was a great-great-grandson of King Sejong. He practised poetry, calligraphy, and ink painting.

Attributed to Stipple Master. This monkey's name has survived: Husaini. An inscription on the reverse connects the animal with Nawab Davad, or Daud, Khan.

Unidentified Iranian painters. This late-sixteenth-century Persian Shahnameh leaf concerns Zal's encounter with Rudaba.

Unidentified painter, possibly Newari. This painting was worn on the head. A monk used the painted crown in Buddhist ritual; objects of this kind could also form part of ceremonial dance…

Unidentified Egyptian painters. Nauny, a chantress of Amun, undergoes judgment after death. We see the central episode of a papyrus more than five metres long, made around 1050 BCE.

Gustav Klimt. In 1908, Klimt exhibited an embracing couple surrounded by gold in Vienna. The Austrian state acquired the work for the Modern Gallery during his lifetime.

Attributed to Lydos. This krater, a vessel for mixing wine with water, carries the myth of Hephaistos’ return to Olympus. The smith god returned through Dionysos and wine.

Vasily Polenov. Polenov painted this Moscow garden in 1878. Two women have stepped onto a path beside the Baumgarten estate house.

Bernat Martorell. Bernat Martorell painted Saint George's victory over the dragon around 1434–35. In Christian legend, the knight rescued a princess intended as the monster's victim.

Giotto di Bondone. Christ has been taken down from the cross. Mary bends towards his face, women support his body, and disciples stand nearby.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Dante Gabriel Rossetti joined medieval poetry with remembrance of his wife Elizabeth Siddal in Beata Beatrix.

Vincent van Gogh. Augustine Roulin holds a cord connected to a cradle outside the picture. Van Gogh called the image La Berceuse, or Lullaby, and painted five versions.

Vincent van Gogh. The room was in the Yellow House in Arles, but Van Gogh painted this version in Saint-Rémy in September 1889.

Franz Marc. Franz Marc painted The Bewitched Mill in 1913 after visiting Merano in South Tyrol. He was interested in how animals experience their surroundings.

John Singer Sargent. John Singer Sargent painted his friends beside the Villa Torlonia fountain in 1907.

Unidentified Japanese painters. This fourteenth-century Japanese handscroll recounts the origins of the Yuzu Nembutsu school.

Zhu Yu. The complete Street Life in Times of Peace scroll contains more than four hundred people. We see one section of its long succession of activities and encounters.

Unidentified painter in the style of An Gyeon. Two Korean scrolls concern places in China familiar to educated viewers through literature.

Unidentified Indian painters. Made around 1820, this watercolour depicts the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daula in Agra.

Painting by Riza-yi 'Abbasi. Riza-yi Abbasi painted this couple in 1630, late in his career at the Safavid court. They sit embracing among lightly drawn plants.

Unidentified Tibetan painters. Six syllables of prayer underlie this image. Shadakshari Lokeshvara is a form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, associated with the mantra Om…

Unidentified painters of Roman Egypt. Gold covers the girl’s lips, like the wreath and jewellery. The portrait was intended for burial in Egypt under Roman rule.

Attributed to Berlin Painter. A young man sings while playing the kithara. A judge appears on the other side of the amphora, suggesting a musical competition.

Konstantin Korovin. Korovin painted In a Boat in 1888. A young man reads beside a woman, surrounded by waterside vegetation.

Juan Sánchez Cotán. Juan Sanchez Cotan painted this still life around 1600–03, as independent depictions of objects became a European specialisation.

Bartolomeo Manfredi. Mars, god of war, raises a scourge above Cupid. Venus tries to stop him, while the boy already lies on the ground.

John Constable. John Constable painted this large study in 1836 after many years in London. Stoke-by-Nayland lay near his childhood village.

Meindert Hobbema. Meindert Hobbema returned to watermills more than thirty times. Painted around 1665, this landscape draws on motifs shared with his teacher Jacob van Ruisdael.