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Famous Paintings: 40 Masterpieces Everyone Should Know

Five centuries of the pictures the world keeps coming back to, from Leonardo's smile to Pollock's skein of paint, and why each one earned its place.

The most famous paintings in the world are a short list most people could half-recite: Leonardo's Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Van Gogh's The Starry Night in New York, Botticelli's The Birth of Venus in Florence, Rembrandt's The Night Watch in Amsterdam. This page gathers forty of them, ordered roughly by how widely they are known, and explains what each one changed.

Fame in painting is not an accident. A picture becomes famous because it solved a problem other painters had been circling, because a crowd once fought over it, because it was stolen, or because it caught something about its century so exactly that later centuries borrowed it to describe themselves. Below the list you will find the story that connects them: a walk from the Renaissance to Abstract Expressionism, a guide to where the originals hang, and short answers to the questions people ask most about famous artworks.

  1. 01

    A young woman in a dark dress and sheer veil sits with folded hands, smiling faintly before a hazy landscape of winding roads and mountains — Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c. 1503–1519

    Mona Lisa

    Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1503–1519

    The Mona Lisa is Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of the Florentine Lisa Gherardini, begun around 1503 and worked on for years afterward. Painted in oil on a poplar panel, it hangs in the Louvre, Paris, the most famous painting in the world.

  2. 02

    Swirling blue and yellow night sky with glowing stars and a crescent moon above a sleeping village and a dark flame-like cypress — Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889

    The Starry Night (van Gogh)

    Vincent van Gogh · 1889

    The Starry Night is a painting by Vincent van Gogh, made in June 1889 at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence: a swirling night sky over a village and a flame-like cypress. It is in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

  3. 03

    Christ sits at the center of a long white table as twelve apostles react in four agitated groups in a room receding to three windows — Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, c. 1495–98

    The Last Supper

    Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1495–98

    The Last Supper is Leonardo da Vinci's wall painting of Christ and the twelve apostles at the moment he announces one will betray him, painted c. 1495–98 in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, where it remains.

  4. 04

    A naked goddess with long red-gold hair stands on a scallop shell at sea while two winged winds blow her ashore and a woman waits with a flowered cloak — Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, c. 1484–1486

    The Birth of Venus

    Sandro Botticelli · c. 1484–1486

    The Birth of Venus is Sandro Botticelli's painting of the goddess Venus arriving on a scallop shell, blown ashore by the winds, made in Florence around 1484–1486. It hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

  5. 05

    Dozens of ancient philosophers gather on marble steps beneath vast arched vaults, with Plato and Aristotle walking at the center — Raphael, The School of Athens, 1509–1511

    The School of Athens

    Raphael · 1509–1511

    The School of Athens is a fresco painted by Raphael in 1509–1511 for the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, showing Plato, Aristotle and the great thinkers of antiquity in a vast classical hall. It is still in place in the Vatican Museums.

  6. 06

    A captain in black and a lieutenant in gold lead a crowd of militiamen with muskets, pikes and a flag out of a dark archway into the light — Rembrandt, The Night Watch, 1642

    The Night Watch

    Rembrandt · 1642

    The Night Watch is Rembrandt's 1642 group portrait of an Amsterdam civic militia company led by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, famous for its drama, movement and light. It hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

  7. 07

    The interior of the Sistine Chapel, its long vault covered with frescoed Genesis scenes, prophets and nude figures, with the Last Judgment on the far wall — Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508–12

    Sistine Chapel ceiling

    Michelangelo · 1508–12

    The Sistine Chapel ceiling is the fresco cycle Michelangelo painted for Pope Julius II between 1508 and 1512, with nine scenes from Genesis, including The Creation of Adam, surrounded by prophets, sibyls and nude youths. It is in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

  8. 08

    A three-panel painting moving from a calm green Eden through a crowded garden of naked figures and giant fruit to a dark, burning hell full of monsters — Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1490–1510

    The Garden of Earthly Delights

    Hieronymus Bosch · c. 1490–1510

    The Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych painted by Hieronymus Bosch around 1490–1510, moving from Eden through a garden of naked pleasure-seekers to a nightmarish hell. It is in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

  9. 09

    An orange sun rises through pink and blue-gray haze over a harbor of masts, cranes and chimneys, its reflection streaking toward dark rowing boats — Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872

    Impression, Sunrise

    Claude Monet · 1872

    Impression, Sunrise is Claude Monet's 1872 view of the port of Le Havre at dawn, an orange sun over blue-gray haze. Its title gave Impressionism its name in 1874. It hangs in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris.

  10. 10

    Two versions of a vase of yellow sunflowers, fresh and wilting, against yellow backgrounds, side by side — Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888 and 1889

    Sunflowers

    Vincent van Gogh · 1888–89

    Sunflowers is a series of still lifes of sunflowers in a vase painted by Vincent van Gogh in Arles in 1888–89. The best-known version, from August 1888, is in the National Gallery, London; a January 1889 repetition is in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

  11. 11

    A man in a white shirt flings up his arms before a faceless French firing squad at night, lit by a lantern, as bodies lie in blood at his feet — Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, 1814

    The Third of May 1808

    Francisco Goya · 1814

    The Third of May 1808 is Francisco Goya's 1814 painting of Spanish civilians being shot by a French firing squad the morning after the Madrid uprising against Napoleon's troops. It hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

  12. 12

    A bare-breasted woman in a red cap raises the French tricolor and a musket over a barricade of bodies as armed Parisians follow her through the smoke — Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830

    Liberty Leading the People

    Eugène Delacroix · 1830

    Liberty Leading the People is Eugène Delacroix's 1830 painting of the July Revolution in Paris, with Liberty as a bare-breasted woman raising the tricolor over a barricade. It hangs in the Louvre in Paris.

  13. 13

    Desperate survivors heaped on a storm-tossed raft strain toward a man waving a cloth at a tiny ship on the horizon, the dead slipping into the sea — Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818–1819

    The Raft of the Medusa

    Théodore Géricault · 1818–1819

    The Raft of the Medusa is Théodore Géricault's 1818–19 painting of survivors of the French frigate Méduse, adrift on a makeshift raft and signaling a distant ship. The vast canvas hangs in the Louvre in Paris.

  14. 14

    A man in a dark green coat stands with his back to us on a rocky summit, leaning on a cane and gazing over mountains half-hidden in a sea of fog — Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, c. 1817

    Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

    Caspar David Friedrich · c. 1817

    Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, made around 1817, of a man seen from behind on a rocky summit gazing over a landscape of fog. It is in the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg.

  15. 15

    A pale young woman in a silver dress floats on her back in a green stream, palms up and lips parted, as flowers drift from her hand — John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851–52

    Ophelia

    John Everett Millais · 1851–52

    The Ophelia painting by John Everett Millais (1851–52) shows Shakespeare's Ophelia floating in a stream moments before she drowns. Modeled by Elizabeth Siddal, it hangs in Tate Britain in London.

  16. 16

    A wild-eyed gray-haired giant crouches in darkness, biting into the headless, bloodied body he clutches in both hands — Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, c. 1819–1823

    Saturn Devouring His Son

    Francisco Goya · c. 1819–1823

    Saturn Devouring His Son is one of Francisco Goya's Black Paintings, painted directly onto a wall of his house outside Madrid around 1819–1823. Transferred to canvas, it now hangs in the Museo del Prado.

  17. 17

    A young woman in a billowing pink dress flies on a swing in a leafy garden, kicking off her slipper as a young man hidden in the roses gazes up at her — Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, c. 1767

    The Swing

    Jean-Honoré Fragonard · c. 1767

    The Swing painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (c. 1767) shows a young woman in pink soaring on a swing while a hidden lover gazes up her skirts. The Rococo masterpiece hangs in the Wallace Collection in London.

  18. 18

    Two richly dressed men stand beside a shelf of globes, sundials, a lute and books, with a distorted skull stretched across the floor — Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors, 1533

    The Ambassadors

    Hans Holbein the Younger · 1533

    The Ambassadors painting is Hans Holbein the Younger's 1533 double portrait of two French envoys in London, surrounded by scientific instruments and crossed by a famous distorted skull. It hangs in the National Gallery, London.

  19. 19

    A dead man with a white head cloth slumps in a bathtub, one arm hanging to the floor with a quill, a letter in his other hand, before a dark empty wall — Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, 1793

    The Death of Marat

    Jacques-Louis David · 1793

    The Death of Marat is Jacques-Louis David's 1793 painting of the murdered revolutionary journalist Jean-Paul Marat, slumped in his bath after Charlotte Corday stabbed him. It hangs in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.

  20. 20

    Two women hold a bearded man down on a bed as one, in a gold dress, drives a sword through his neck and blood runs down the white sheets — Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes, c. 1620

    Judith Slaying Holofernes

    Artemisia Gentileschi · c. 1620

    Judith Beheading Holofernes (Judith Slaying Holofernes) is Artemisia Gentileschi's painting of about 1620, showing the biblical widow and her maid holding down the Assyrian general as Judith saws through his neck. This version is in the Uffizi, Florence; an earlier one is in Naples.

  21. 21

    A woman in a white gown lies flung backward across a bed while a dark demon squats on her chest and a white-eyed horse looks through red curtains — Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781

    The Nightmare

    Henry Fuseli · 1781

    The Nightmare painting is Henry Fuseli's 1781 oil of a sleeping woman with a demon crouched on her chest and a wild-eyed horse peering through the curtains. It caused a sensation in London in 1782 and now hangs in the Detroit Institute of Arts.

  22. 22

    A horse-drawn wooden cart stands in a shallow stream beside a cottage under big summer clouds, a dog watching from the bank — John Constable, The Hay Wain, 1821

    The Hay Wain

    John Constable · 1821

    The Hay Wain is John Constable's 1821 painting of a horse-drawn hay cart crossing the River Stour beside a cottage at Flatford in Suffolk, under a summer sky of moving clouds. It hangs in the National Gallery, London, and is one of the best-known English landscapes.

  23. 23

    A café terrace glows yellow under a lit awning on a cobbled street at night, beneath a deep blue sky scattered with stars — Vincent van Gogh, Café Terrace at Night, 1888

    Café Terrace at Night

    Vincent van Gogh · September 1888

    Café Terrace at Night is Vincent van Gogh's September 1888 painting of a gaslit café on the Place du Forum in Arles under a starry sky, his first canvas with stars. It is in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands.

  24. 24

    A woman in a white dress holds a green parasol on a grassy rise against a blue, cloud-streaked sky while a small boy stands behind the hill — Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875

    Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son

    Claude Monet · 1875

    Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son is an 1875 painting by Claude Monet of his wife Camille and their son Jean on a windy hillside at Argenteuil. It is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

  25. 25

    Lily pads and red water lilies float on a pond reflecting blue sky, pink clouds and the dark streaks of a willow — Claude Monet, Water-Lily Pond (Le Bassin aux nymphéas), 1917–19

    Water-Lily Pond (Le Bassin aux nymphéas), 1917–19

    Claude Monet · 1917–19

    This Water Lilies is Le Bassin aux nymphéas of 1917–19 by Claude Monet, a wide canvas of red lilies and blue sky reflected in his Giverny pond. It is privately owned and sold at Sotheby's New York in 2021.

  26. 26

    A woman in a white dress sits in a boat draped with a woven cloth, releasing its chain on a reedy river, three candles at the prow — John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott, 1888

    The Lady of Shalott

    John William Waterhouse · 1888

    The Lady of Shalott is John William Waterhouse's 1888 painting of Tennyson's doomed heroine drifting downriver toward Camelot in a boat, a woven cloth trailing in the water. It is in Tate Britain, London, and is one of the most loved Victorian paintings.

  27. 27

    A woman in a sheer orange dress sleeps curled on a marble bench above a sunlit sea, an oleander branch hanging at the top right — Frederic Leighton, Flaming June, 1895

    Flaming June

    Frederic Leighton · 1895

    Flaming June is Frederic Leighton's 1895 painting of a woman asleep in a sheer orange dress on a marble terrace above a glittering sea. It belongs to the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico and is the most famous image of Victorian Aestheticism.

  28. 28

    In a stone prison cell, the bare-chested philosopher Socrates sits on a bed reaching for a cup of hemlock and pointing upward as his followers weep around him — Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, 1787

    The Death of Socrates

    Jacques-Louis David · 1787

    The Death of Socrates is Jacques-Louis David's 1787 painting of the Athenian philosopher calmly reaching for the cup of hemlock while still teaching his grieving followers. It is the great Neoclassical image of dying for one's principles and hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

  29. 29

    An army of skeletons overruns a burning landscape, killing a king, soldiers and lovers while ships sink in a smoky sea — Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Triumph of Death, c. 1562

    The Triumph of Death

    Pieter Bruegel the Elder · c. 1562

    The Triumph of Death is Pieter Bruegel the Elder's panel painting of about 1562, in which an army of skeletons sweeps across a burning landscape and spares no one, king or peasant. It hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

  30. 30

    A small rowboat carrying a white-shrouded figure and a draped coffin approaches a rocky island of tombs and tall dark cypresses on a still sea — Arnold Böcklin, Isle of the Dead, 1880

    Isle of the Dead

    Arnold Böcklin · 1880 (first version); five versions 1880–86

    The Island of the Dead (Die Toteninsel) is Arnold Böcklin's Symbolist painting of a rowboat carrying a white-shrouded figure and a coffin toward a rocky, cypress-filled island. He painted five versions between 1880 and 1886; the first is in the Kunstmuseum Basel.

  31. 31

    Five peasants with coarse faces share a dish of potatoes and pour coffee at a small table under a hanging oil lamp in a dark cottage — Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885

    The Potato Eaters

    Vincent van Gogh · April–May 1885

    The Potato Eaters is Vincent van Gogh's 1885 painting of a peasant family sharing a meal of potatoes by lamplight in Nuenen, the Netherlands, his first ambitious figure composition. It is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

  32. 32

    Black crows fly low over a wind-tossed golden wheat field under a dark, stormy blue sky, with three paths cutting through the wheat — Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows, July 1890

    Wheatfield with Crows

    Vincent van Gogh · July 1890

    Wheatfield with Crows is a painting by Vincent van Gogh made in July 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise, weeks before his death, showing a stormy sky and black crows over a golden wheat field. It is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

  33. 33

    An empty billiard table stands in a café with red walls, a green ceiling and glowing gas lamps, a few customers slumped at tables — Vincent van Gogh, The Night Café, 1888

    The Night Café

    Vincent van Gogh · 1888

    The Night Café (Le Café de nuit) is a September 1888 painting by Vincent van Gogh of an all-night café in Arles, its red walls and green ceiling lit by gas lamps. It is in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.

  34. 34

    A young man in a brown cloak and feathered hat kisses a woman in a shimmering pale-blue satin gown beside a stone staircase — Francesco Hayez, The Kiss, 1859

    The Kiss

    Francesco Hayez · 1859

    The Kiss (Il bacio) is an 1859 oil painting by the Italian Romantic Francesco Hayez, showing a young couple in medieval dress locked in an embrace at the foot of a stone staircase. It hangs in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.

  35. 35

    A gaunt, blind old man in ragged blue clothes sits hunched cross-legged over a brown guitar against a blue background — Pablo Picasso, The Old Guitarist, 1903–04

    The Old Guitarist

    Pablo Picasso · 1903–04

    The Old Guitarist is Pablo Picasso's Blue Period painting of a blind, emaciated street musician hunched over his guitar, made in Barcelona in late 1903 to early 1904. It is in the Art Institute of Chicago.

  36. 36

    A woman in a red hat with a blue flower holds a white handkerchief to her face, which is broken into yellow, green and white planes, with black tears — Pablo Picasso, The Weeping Woman, 1937

    The Weeping Woman

    Pablo Picasso · 1937

    The Weeping Woman is a 1937 painting by Pablo Picasso of a woman in a red hat crying into a handkerchief, modeled on the photographer Dora Maar and made in the aftermath of Guernica. It is in the Tate, London.

  37. 37

    Terrified men, women and children flee through a Pompeii street as Vesuvius erupts in red fire and statues fall from the rooftops — Karl Bryullov, The Last Day of Pompeii, 1830–33

    The Last Day of Pompeii

    Karl Bryullov · 1830–33

    The Last Day of Pompeii is a huge history painting by Karl Bryullov, made in Rome in 1830–33, showing the inhabitants of Pompeii fleeing the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. It is in the State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg.

  38. 38

    An old man in black kneels on a red carpet clutching a young man in a pink robe whose head is bleeding, a staff lying on the floor in front of them — Ilya Repin, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 1883–85

    Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan

    Ilya Repin · 1883–85

    Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan is an 1883–85 painting by Ilya Repin in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. It shows Tsar Ivan IV clutching his dying son and heir moments after striking him with his staff in November 1581.

  39. 39

    A grandmother sets a large roast turkey on a white-clothed table as a smiling family leans in from both sides — Norman Rockwell, Freedom from Want, 1943

    Freedom from Want

    Norman Rockwell · 1943

    Freedom from Want is Norman Rockwell's 1943 painting of an American family gathered at a table as a grandmother sets down a Thanksgiving turkey, the third of his Four Freedoms series. It is in the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

  40. 40

    A dense all-over web of black, white, pink, gray and silver poured and dripped lines covering the whole canvas — Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)

    Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)

    Jackson Pollock · 1950

    Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) is one of Jackson Pollock's great poured paintings, made in summer 1950 in his barn studio on Long Island. Nearly three meters wide, it is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

How we chose these forty paintings

Any list of famous paintings is an argument, so here are the rules we used. A work had to be recognized far beyond art history, by people who have never set foot in its museum. It had to have changed what painting could do, or what people thought painting was for. And we kept one eye on range: altarpieces and portraits, history paintings and landscapes, a ceiling, a garden, a café at night.

We have left out sculpture (it has its own page, famous sculptures) and kept to works whose originals can be located and visited. Where two painters made versions of the same subject, we chose the one people actually mean when they say the title.

The Renaissance: painting learns to see

The list opens in Italy around 1480, when painters were working out how to make a flat wall behave like a window. Botticelli's Birth of Venus (c. 1484–86, Uffizi) still floats in an older, linear world: Venus stands on her shell with impossible sloping shoulders, more pattern than anatomy. Barely twenty years later, Leonardo was dissolving edges altogether. In the Mona Lisa (begun c. 1503) the corners of the mouth and eyes sit in soft shadow, a technique Italians called sfumato, "gone up in smoke," which is why the expression seems to shift as you look.

The Last Supper (c. 1495–98) shows the same mind working at the scale of a wall: every line of the ceiling converges on Christ's head, so the room itself points to him. Raphael's School of Athens and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling were painted within a few hundred yards of each other in the Vatican between 1508 and 1512, and between them they set the standard European artists measured themselves against for four hundred years. North of the Alps, Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and Holbein's Ambassadors, with its stretched skull that snaps into focus only from the side, prove that the Renaissance was never only Italian. For more, see our guide to Renaissance paintings.

Baroque light and the drama of the moment

In the seventeenth century painters stopped arranging calm, ideal worlds and started staging the instant of greatest tension. Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith Slaying Holofernes shows the sword already in the neck, the blood running in thin lines across the sheet. Rembrandt's Night Watch (1642) turns a civic group portrait, normally a row of stiff faces, into a company stepping out of shadow into raking light. Look for the small girl in gold near the center, lit as brightly as the captain: she carries the claws of a chicken at her belt, the emblem of the militia company. The same century's love of darkness and spotlight runs through our Baroque art collection.

Revolution, ruin and the Romantic sky

Fragonard's The Swing (1767) is the last breath of Rococo frivolity: a pink silk skirt, a flying slipper, a lover hidden in the roses. Within a generation that world was gone. David's Death of Marat (1793) is a revolutionary martyr painted like a deposed Christ, and Goya's Third of May 1808 (1814) invents the modern image of the anonymous firing squad. Géricault's Raft of the Medusa and Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People made the Paris Salon into a front line of politics.

Romanticism also turned inward. Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Fog gives us a man seen only from behind, so that the viewer stands in his boots. Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son, painted directly onto the walls of his house and never meant for the public, may be the most private famous painting ever made.

The nineteenth century: from Ophelia to the open air

Victorian Britain contributed two of the most reproduced pictures on this list. Millais's Ophelia (1851–52, Tate Britain) was painted outdoors on the banks of the Hogsmill River in Surrey, with the model, Elizabeth Siddal, posed later in a bath in his London studio. Waterhouse's The Lady of Shalott (1888) and Leighton's Flaming June (1895) carried that literary, jewel-colored manner to the end of the century.

Meanwhile in France, Monet's Impression, Sunrise (1872) handed a mocking critic the name of a movement. Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Van Gogh's ten feverish years followed in quick succession: The Potato Eaters in 1885, Sunflowers and Café Terrace at Night in 1888, The Starry Night in 1889, painted from memory and imagination in the asylum at Saint-Rémy, and Wheatfield with Crows in the summer of 1890, weeks before his death.

The twentieth century: breaking the picture open

The last stretch of the list moves fast. Picasso's Old Guitarist (1903–04) belongs to his Blue Period, all elongated limbs and cold ultramarine; his Weeping Woman (1937) breaks a face into shards in the year of Guernica. Norman Rockwell's Freedom from Want (1943) became the definitive American image of the family meal, and Pollock's Number 1 (Lavender Mist) (1950) did away with the subject altogether, recording only the movement of the painter's arm.

What makes a painting famous?

Look across the forty and patterns appear. Some works became famous through a single event: the Mona Lisa was a respected Louvre picture until Vincenzo Peruggia walked out with it in August 1911, and the two years of newspaper coverage that followed made it a global celebrity. Others were famous from their unveiling because they caused a scandal at the Salon. Many were spread by print. Engravings carried Raphael across Europe in the 1500s; color reproduction and postcards did the same for Van Gogh, who sold very little in his lifetime.

A final ingredient is simplicity of silhouette. The swirl of the Starry Night sky, the triangle of bodies on Géricault's raft, the profile of Friedrich's wanderer: each can be recognized from a thumbnail. Pictures that survive being reduced to an icon tend to be the ones that end up on mugs, which is not the same as being great, but in these cases the two happen to coincide.

How to look at a famous painting

Fame is a barrier as much as a door. When you stand in front of something you have seen a thousand times, the reproduction in your head gets in the way. Three habits help.

First, check the size: The Night Watch is nearly four by four and a half meters, while the Mona Lisa is only 77 by 53 centimeters, smaller than most people expect. Second, look at the edges rather than the center, where painters often hide their best passages. Third, find one detail you had never noticed, such as the reflection in a glass or a signature on a wall, and let that be your way in.

Where to see the world's most famous paintings

The originals are concentrated in a handful of cities. Paris holds the Mona Lisa, Liberty Leading the People and The Raft of the Medusa at the Louvre, with Impression, Sunrise at the Musée Marmottan Monet. Madrid's Prado has Saturn, The Third of May, The Garden of Earthly Delights and Bruegel's Triumph of Death.

London's National Gallery has The Ambassadors, The Hay Wain and a Sunflowers; Tate Britain has Ophelia and The Lady of Shalott. Amsterdam pairs the Rijksmuseum's Night Watch with the Van Gogh Museum. In America, MoMA has The Starry Night, the Metropolitan Museum has The Death of Socrates, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington has Lavender Mist and Monet's Woman with a Parasol.

Questions & answers

What is the most famous painting in the world?

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, painted from about 1503 and now in the Louvre in Paris, is generally agreed to be the most famous painting in the world. Its fame grew from Leonardo's soft sfumato modeling, centuries of praise, and above all its theft from the Louvre in 1911, which made it front-page news for two years until its recovery in 1913.

What are the top 10 most famous paintings?

Most lists agree on the core: the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Starry Night, The Birth of Venus, The School of Athens, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, The Night Watch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Goya's The Third of May 1808. The exact order is a matter of taste; the names barely change.

Where can I see the most famous paintings in person?

Start with the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid, the Uffizi in Florence, the Vatican Museums, the National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Together these hold more than half of the paintings on this list.

Who painted the most famous paintings?

Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Francisco Goya and Pablo Picasso appear on almost every list of famous paintings. Van Gogh is unusual among them: he sold very little during his life, and his fame came almost entirely after his death in 1890.

What is the most expensive painting ever sold?

Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, sold at Christie's New York in November 2017 for $450.3 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting at auction. Its attribution is still debated by scholars, and its current whereabouts have not been publicly confirmed.