Iconic Artists Through Time

The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (c. 1503–19)

Leonardo’s final masterpiece (c. 1503–1519), The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, crowns his career. In a serene pyramid, Saint Anne smiles at Mary on her lap, who gently holds the playful Christ Child reaching for a lamb—a symbol of his future sacrifice. Unlike the knowing infant in Virgin of the Rocks, here Jesus is innocently childlike, gazing trustingly at his mother. The tender, intimate bonds between the three generations reveal Leonardo’s 

Michelangelo’s final fresco (1546–1550) 

The Crucifixion of St. Peter, adorns the Cappella Paolina in the Vatican Palace, Rome. Painted at age 75, it depicts the upside-down martyrdom of Peter with dramatic torsion, raw emotion, and swirling crowds—a powerful, sombre masterpiece marking the end of the High Renaissance fresco tradition. 

Portrait of Gerard de Lairesse (1665–67) 

Unflinchingly reveals the disfiguring effects of congenital syphilis on the once-celebrated painter and theorist: swollen features, bulbous nose, and clouded eyes. Yet with profound empathy, Rembrandt bestows quiet dignity on his sitter, whose later writings scorned Rembrandt’s rough style as “liquid mud,” transforming physical ruin into a poignant meditation on human resilience and artistic truth.

Head of a Woman (1960) 

Portrays Jacqueline Roque, his muse and future wife (married 1961). With bold lines and distorted forms, it captures her high cheekbones, large eyes, and straight dark hair. This wash drawing, one of ten from November 12, 1960, reworks 1949 portraits of Françoise Gilot, transforming past love into a vivid tribute to Jacqueline.

Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889)

Painted at Saint-Rémy in July 1889, this exuberant horizontal landscape captures swirling wheat fields and Provençal sky framed by towering, flame-like cypresses. Thick, rhythmic impasto and vivid color convey nature’s vitality. Van Gogh considered it one of his “best” summer works, later producing two studio versions (National Gallery, London, and a smaller replica).

Mond Crucifixion (1502–1503)

Raphael’s earliest masterpiece, painted at age twenty, reveals Perugino’s lingering influence. The upper half displays flat, decorative elegance—ribbon-like angels and calligraphic silhouettes—contrasting the powerfully sculptural Christ. Yet the true genius lies in the serene, luminous landscape: a baptismal river winds through rolling hills beneath a vast sky, dissolving into light and atmosphere, announcing Raphael’s emerging mastery of space and poetic distance. 

Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, 1571

Cornelis Cort after Titian This powerful engraving translates Titian’s dramatic composition and rich tonality into stark black and white. Cornelis Cort, the most celebrated printmaker of his era, revolutionized engraving by masterfully varying pressure on the burin, creating swelling, tapering lines that swell and thin to produce subtle gradations of darkness and luminous depth using only single strokes.

Narcissus (c.1599)

Caravaggio’s haunting Baroque masterpiece portrays the mythic youth transfixed by his own reflection. Painted in oil on canvas, the tenebristic drama of plunging darkness and stark light isolates Narcissus in silent obsession, his mirrored face dissolving into shadow. A seminal work of psychological intensity and Caravaggio’s revolutionary realism.

A Girl Asleep (1657)

Johannes Vermeer’s intimate early masterpiece, depicts a young woman dozing at a table, bathed in soft northern light. Rich still-life details—rumpled tablecloth, half-open door, and a distant figure—hint at interrupted reverie or quiet domestic solitude. Painted in warm tones with exquisite precision, it reveals Vermeer’s emerging genius for luminous atmosphere and subtle narrative. Oil on canvas, 87.6 × 76.5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Prince Balthasar Carlos (c.1639)

In this tender hunting portrait, the six-year-old Spanish infante, dressed in embroidered buff leather and silver, stands confidently with a dwarf companion against a cold Castilian landscape. Velázquez bathes the child in soft, luminous light, capturing both royal dignity and fleeting innocence shortly before the prince’s tragic death at age sixteen. A masterpiece of Baroque portraiture.

The Shipwreck (c.1805)

J.M.W. Turner’s dramatic breakthrough canvas captures a tempest-torn sea swallowing a fragile vessel, its masts snapping as desperate figures cling to wreckage. Waves explode in foaming chaos while a blood-red sunset pierces the storm, heralding Turner’s revolutionary mastery of light, movement and nature’s sublime terror. A pivotal early statement of British Romanticism.

Forest (c. 1890) – Paul Cézanne

This late oil sketch captures a dense Provençal forest interior with bold, rhythmic brushstroprivn strokes of green, blue and ochre. Cézanne’s constructive brushwork builds volume and depth, transforming chaotic foliage into a structured, almost architectural space. Light filters through the canopy in patches, prefiguring his revolutionary shift toward abstraction and modern painting.

A Glimpse of Notre-Dame in the Late Afternoon (1902)

Painted in 1902 during his brief, dark “proto-Fauve” period, this small canvas captures Notre-Dame from the Seine in muted blues and violets under fading winter light. Thick, divided brushstrokes and subdued tones reveal Matisse experimenting with color structure and atmosphere before his explosive liberation into Fauvism two years later.

Mural (1943)

Jackson Pollock’s breakthrough 8×20 ft canvas, commissioned by Peggy Guggenheim for her New York townhouse. Explosive rhythms of poured and flung paint in vibrant blacks, whites, yellows, blues and reds mark his first all-over composition, abandoning easel scale and heralding Abstract Expressionism. Widely regarded as the moment Pollock found his revolutionary drip technique.

Fortune (1495)

Dürer’s earliest known engraving, Fortune (or Nemesis), depicts the nude goddess of fate balancing precariously on a sphere while holding a bridle and goblet, floating above a detailed Renaissance landscape. This technically revolutionary work showcases the young artist’s mastery of line and allegory, symbolizing life’s instability and the capriciousness of destiny.

Woman Fishing and Seated Figures (1884)

An early transitional work by the future inventor of Pointillism, this quiet riverside scene already reveals Seurat’s fascination with light, color contrasts and composed figures. Painted in a loose yet disciplined brushwork before his fully-developed dot technique, it captures serene everyday leisure with subtle luminosity and structural harmony.

Tunas (Still Life with Prickly Pear Fruit), 1938

Frida Kahlo’s radiant still life celebrates Mexico’s humble prickly pear fruit. Bright red tunas glow against a lush backdrop of cactus leaves under a golden sky. Painted the same year as the darker El Suicidio de Dorothy Hale, this serene, vibrant work reveals Kahlo’s deep love for Mexican identity, nature, and folk symbolism in vivid, life-affirming color.