Ariadne was abandoned on the island of Naxos by Theseus & was discovered there by the god Bacchus, who fell in love with her. (Ovid, ' Metamorphoses', 8). The composition is based on a painting by Carpioni (died 1674). Different suggestions for the date h ...

Create your own bespoke print of Titian’s Bacchus & Ariadne from our collection. About this painting Bacchus & Ariadne, 1520-3 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1826 With our custom print service, you can order your own fully customised reproduction from the National Gallery Collection & exhibitions. Choose your own size, print material & frames & have your masterpiece delivered straight to your door. ...

The older player throws the dice, while his opponent moves a chip. Two other figures watch the game. In the right background three men warm themselves by a fire. The reverse of the panel bears the brand of the coat of arms of the city of Antwerp. ...

Create your own bespoke print of Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas’s Ballet Dancers from our collection. About this painting Ballet Dancers, about 1890-1900 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1926 With our custom print service, you can order your own fully customised reproduction from the National Gallery Collection & exhibitions. Choose your own size, print material & frames & have your masterpiece delivered straight to your door. ...

The sitter was a Bolognese of noble family. The writing on the letter identifies the sitter as Bartolomeo Bianchini of Bologna (' Bononiae'), the city where Francia worked as a painter & goldsmith. Bianchini was a humanist scholar of noble family; he wa ...

Create your own bespoke print of Georges Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières from our collection. About this painting Bathers at Asnières, 1884 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1924 With our custom print service, you can order your own fully customised reproduction from the National Gallery Collection & exhibitions. Choose your own size, print material & frames & have your masterpiece delivered straight to your door. ...

Create your own bespoke print of Claude Monet’s Bathers at La Grenouillère from our collection. About this painting Bathers at La Grenouillère, 1869 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1979 With our custom print service, you can order your own fully customised reproduction from the National Gallery Collection & exhibitions. Choose your own size, print material & frames & have your masterpiece delivered straight to your door. ...

Asnières is an industrial suburb west of Paris on the River Seine. Bathers at Asnières shows a group of young workmen taking their leisure by the river. Bathers at Asnières was the first of Seurat's large-scale compositions. He drew conté crayon studies for individual figures using live models, & made small oil sketches on site which he used to help design the composition & record effects of light & atmosphere. Some 14 oil sketches & 10 drawings survive. The final composition, painted in the studio, combines information from both. While the painting was not executed using Seurat's pointillist technique, which he had not yet invented, the artist later reworked areas of this picture using dots of contrasting colour to create a vibrant, luminous effect. For example, dots of orange & blue were added to the boy's hat. The simplicity of the forms & the use of regular shapes clearly defined by light recalls paintings by the Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca. In his use of figures seen in profile, Seurat may also have been influenced by ancient Egyptian art. ...

Traditionally called 'A Squall from the West', this painting probably shows the beach at Trouville. This sketch was presumably painted on the spot on 7 April, perhaps in the 1890s. The bleak mood of this empty beach is in contrast to the crowded beach sce ...

In 1873, following his imprisonment for his political activities during the Paris Commune, Courbet went into exile at La Tour-de-Peilz beside Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). This picture probably belongs to a group of views of Lac Léman painted in 1874. In technique & composition it recalls Courbet's earlier views of the Channel coast, which were influenced by Eugène Boudin & James Abbott Mc Neill Whistler. On loan to the exhibition ' Courbet & the Modern Landscape' at the J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles from February to May 2006; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from June to September 2006; & the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore from October 2006 to July 2007. ...