This demonstration of parental discipline of the Merovingian period remains shocking more than a century after its completion. It says much for the grotes-query of nineteenth-century Salon painting, of which it is so spectacular an example, tha

The anatomy class at the École des beaux-arts

Jul 23rd, 2012 5m 34s

Chaucer at the court of Edward III

Jul 23rd, 2012 6m 26s

Though never officially a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, this colleague of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris was, by inclination and practice, sympathetic to the realist ambitions of the movement. Born in Calais, Madox Brown

The defence of Rorke's Drift 1879

Jul 23rd, 2012 6m 14s

The so-called Zulu War came at the moment of greatest British imperial presence in South Africa. Though understood differently today, in 1879 - the year of the event depicted in de Neuville's famous canvas - the violent exchange was seen in ter

Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome, John the Baptist, Bernardino and Bartholomew

Aug 25th, 2010 5m 14s

With its gold-ground and tempera technique, this devotional altarpiece is an example of the international Gothic style that survived in Siena well into the fifteenth century. Noted for the richness and variety of his palette, Sano di Pietro was

Pastoral landscape

Aug 25th, 2010 4m 36s

Known as the 'Diamond Claude' by virtue of its faceted format, this exquisite painting on copper is one of a clutch of such works executed by the celebrated classicist. Claude Gellée was born in Lorrain, but spent most of a productive life in h

Mars and the vestal virgin

Aug 25th, 2010 5m 7s

Jacques Blanchard was one of the most important painters active in Paris in the first half of the seventeenth century. His principal rivals were Simon Vouet and Philippe de Champaigne. Born in Paris in 1600, Blanchard served an apprenticeship w

Constantius appoints Constantine as his successor

Aug 25th, 2010 5m 14s

A young lady holding a pug dog

Aug 25th, 2010 4m 34s

With his pupil Fragonard, François Boucher is rightly held to epitomise the rococo sensibility in French eighteenth-century painting. Refined in intelligence as much as in taste, Boucher's art is a celebration of surface, not superficiality. Hi

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