Paintings

Unidentified Korean painters. A monk extends a bowl towards a small dragon. This Korean scroll of 1235 belonged to a set depicting five hundred arhats, disciples of the Buddha who attained…

Attributed to Manaku. Before battle, Ravana sent Shuka and Sarana to assess Rama’s forces. They were captured, but Rama released the unarmed envoys.

Unidentified Iranian painters. Jonah emerges from a huge fish while an angel brings him clothing. The prophet’s story also belongs to Islamic tradition and appears in the Qur’an.

Unidentified Tibetan painters. Nairatma dances at the centre of this fourteenth-century Tibetan mandala. A palace with four gateways extends around her, surrounded by cremation grounds.

Francisco Goya. Manuel is three or four years old. Goya painted the Count of Altamira’s son in 1787–88 as part of a family commission.

Tintoretto. This painting draws on a Roman account of a crime that brought about a change of government. Sextus Tarquinius, son of Rome’s last king, raped Lucretia.

Sir Edward Burne-Jones. A woman plays a small organ, a knight listens, and Cupid operates the instrument. Edward Burne-Jones worked on The Love Song from 1868 to 1877.

Joachim Wtewael. On a small copper plate, Joachim Wtewael staged a battle for which even the sky seems too cramped. Giants challenge the Olympian gods and suffer defeat.

Claude Monet. Claude Monet returned to this pond for years, having first created the pond itself.

Lucas Cranach the Elder. Cranach painted this hunt in 1540 for the Saxon court.

William James Glackens. At Mouquin’s restaurant, one might encounter both an artist and the person who would review his painting.

Sekkei. These Japanese screens present a Chinese landscape that had long become a literary theme.

Wang Meng. In 1361 Wang Meng painted a man living among mountains, playing a qin and keeping a book close at hand. Beyond this refuge, the Yuan dynasty’s order was breaking down.

Kim Si. Kim Si painted this winter landscape in 1584. He belonged to an educated Korean family affected by his father Kim Anro’s political downfall.

Master of the "Isarda" Bhagavata Purana. Krishna has taken the bathing cowherd women’s clothing, and they ask for it back.

Attributed to Painting attributed to Sultan Muhammad. King Hushang celebrates the discovery of fire. In Firdausi’s Shahnama, he throws a stone at a dragon, misses, and strikes a rock.

El Greco. Fernando Niño de Guevara sits before us in cardinal’s robes. El Greco probably painted him in spring 1600, when the cardinal visited Toledo with Philip III and the court.

Pontormo,. When Pontormo painted Alessandro de’ Medici around 1534–1535, Florence had recently become a duchy.

Joseph Mallord William Turner. Turner shows Venice near the entrance to the Grand Canal. Santa Maria della Salute stands at the right, with palaces along the opposite bank.

Jean Hey, Master of Moulins. An angel tells Mary that she will become the mother of Christ.

Claude Monet. Two ways of looking at the sea coexist on the beach at Sainte-Adresse. For fishermen it is a workplace; for visitors, a spectacle and a place of leisure.

Hans Holbein the Younger. The portrait is associated with Holbein's New Year's gift to Henry VIII in 1539. The king's only legitimate son holds a scepter and makes an authoritative gesture.

George Inness. A small heron nearly disappears into dark water. The title promises a bird’s habitat, yet George Inness leaves its details barely distinct.

Hasegawa Sôya. A bridge extends across the twelve panels of two screens painted by Hasegawa Soya around 1650. The place is Uji, a celebrated site between Kyoto and Nara.

Ren Yi. Ren Yi painted these birds in 1895, the final year of his life. Five pairs represent the fundamental relationships of Confucian society.

Unidentified Korean painters. In this early-sixteenth-century Korean landscape, a scholar receives visitors, walks and continues his journey with servants.

Unidentified Kishangarh painter. A woman holds a tanpura and touches its strings. An unidentified painter made the image around 1735 in Kishangarh, a Rajput principality.

Attributed to Painting attributed to Sultan Muhammad. King Tahmuras has defeated the divs, but the battle has an unexpected sequel.

El Greco. El Greco painted Toledo around 1599–1600. He spent most of his Spanish career in the city. Its skyline is recognizable, although buildings have been rearranged.

Giovanni Bellini. Bellini places the Virgin and Child close to the viewer, with a stone parapet between them.

Joseph Mallord William Turner. Turner was seventy when he exhibited Whalers at the Royal Academy in 1845.

Rogier van der Weyden and workshop. Jean Gros appears near the beginning of a successful court career. He served the future Duke of Burgundy and later accumulated considerable wealth.

Claude Monet. Monet viewed the Palace of Westminster from a terrace at St Thomas’s Hospital across the Thames.

Caspar David Friedrich. A man has climbed above the fog and stopped with his back to us. His face is hidden, and his own body partly blocks the view ahead.

Frederic Edwin Church. A snowy summit, tropical plants and a waterfall meet in one view of Ecuador.

Unidentified Japanese painters. Five episodes from The Tale of Genji share a continuous landscape on these early-seventeenth-century screens.