Masterpieces from the National Gallery

This handsomely designed and illustrated book presents thirty-six masterpieces from the National Gallery’s remarkable and unparalleled collection, introducing major artists through their most renowned works. Each of the featured paintings––which together outline the main innovations in art history––is discussed in fascinating detail. Among those included are Van Eyck’s Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ, Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks, Dürer’s Saint Jerome, Michelangelo’s The Entombment, Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, Bronzino’s An Allegory with Venus and Cupid, Caravaggio’s The Supper at Emmaus, Rembrandt’s Belshazzar’s Feast, Poussin’s A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term of Pan, Velázquez’s 'The Rokeby Venus’, Vermeer’s A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal, Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, Ingres’ Madame Moitessier, Monet’s Bathers at La Grenouillère, Degas’ Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, Cézanne’s Self Portrait, Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières, and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

This handsomely designed and illustrated book presents thirty-six masterpieces from the National Gallery’s remarkable and unparalleled collection, introducing major artists through their most renowned works. Each of the featured paintings––which together outline the main innovations in art history––is discussed in fascinating detail. Among those included are Van Eyck’s Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ, Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks, Dürer’s Saint Jerome, Michelangelo’s The Entombment, Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, Bronzino’s An Allegory with Venus and Cupid, Caravaggio’s The Supper at Emmaus, Rembrandt’s Belshazzar’s Feast, Poussin’s A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term of Pan, Velázquez’s 'The Rokeby Venus’, Vermeer’s A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal, Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, Ingres’ Madame Moitessier, Monet’s Bathers at La Grenouillère, Degas’ Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, Cézanne’s Self Portrait, Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières, and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

Erika Langmuir was head of education at the National Gallery from 1988 to 1995. She is co-author of the Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists and author of the National Gallery Companion Guide, several titles from the best-selling National Gallery Pocket Guides series, and the forthcoming Imagining Childhood: Themes in the Imagery of Childhood, all published by Yale University Press.