The Virtual Gallery Tour: The Old Masters Top 100 Most Famous Paintings features oil on canvas hand-painted Reproductions of the Old Masters. These paintings cover the years 1500-1900 and include works in encaustic, tempera, oils, and watercolor. They cross all painting genres, by Europe’s greatest Old Masters – Top 100, (Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt, Johannes Vermeer, Leonardo da Vinci, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and more). Selected by our Editor, the list covers all the painting genres – religions, mythological and historical, portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and genre paintings. These paintings exemplify all the major art movements which arose during the period.
These reproductions are available for purchase. As you view the paintings, each image is clickable to get more information. In the top left corner of each image you are also able to save to your favorite Pinterest Board. Enjoy your Virtual Gallery Tour: The Old Masters Top 100 Most Famous Paintings.
#1 The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh painted “Starry Night” in 1889 from a room in the mental asylum at Saint-Remy. He was there while recovering from mental illness and his ear amputation. Starry Night depicts a dreamy interpretation of the artist’s asylum room’s sweeping view of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Though Van Gogh revisited this scene in his work on several occasions, “Starry Night” is the only nocturnal study of the view. Thus, in addition to descriptions evident in the myriad of letters he wrote to his brother, Theo, it offers a rare nighttime glimpse into what the artist saw while in isolation. “Through the iron-barred window I can make out a square of wheat in an enclosure,” he wrote in May of 1889, “above which in the morning I see the sunrise in its glory.”
#2 The Kiss by Gustav Klimt
The glowing themes of The Kiss painting by Klimt, showed lovers intertwined into one being. This painting symbolizes the strength of this bond. Some art traditionalists rejected this for its use of eroticism, but others found it refreshing.
Painted in 1908 – A perfect square, the canvas depicts a couple embracing, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes. The robes are decorated in a style influenced by both linear constructs of the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts Movement.
Representing the pinnacle of this period, The Kiss represents the mystical union of spiritual and erotic love and the merging of the individual with the eternal cosmos. This theme was previously explored in paintings such as The Beethoven Frieze and The Tree of Life.
#3 Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer
One of Vermeer’s most engaging images, a young girl dressed in an exotic turban turns and gazes at the viewer. Her liquid eyes and half-opened mouth impart the immediacy of her presence. In addition, her purity and her evocative costume give her a lasting quality, unconstrained by time or place.
The relatively large scale of this figure reveals how Vermeer enhanced the sense of realism through his expressive painting techniques. For example, he enlivened the young girl’s half-smile with two small white dots on either side of her mouth, echoing the highlights in her eyes.
Vermeer also ingeniously used his paints to capture the effect of light falling across her features, turban, and ocher-colored jacket. He evoked the delicacy of her skin with a soft contour for her cheek, which he created by extending a thin glaze slightly over the edge of the thick impasto defining the flesh color. He indicated reflected light from the white color in the pearl earring, but also, and more subtly, in the shadows on her left cheek. Finally, he painted the shaded portion of the blue turban by covering a black under-part with freely applied glazes of natural ultramarine.
More information about #3 Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer
#4 Adele Bloch-Bauer 1 1907 by Gustav Klimt
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is a 1907 painting by Gustav Klimt. It is also called The Lady in Gold or The Woman in Gold. The first of two portraits Klimt painted of Bloch-Bauer, it has been referred to as the final and most fully representative work of his golden phase. Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881–1925) was a wealthy member of Viennese society and a patron and close friend of Gustav Klimt.
This painting comes with quite a story. It was stolen by the Nazis in 1941. The family of the owner fought for 60 years to get it back. It is a story of mystery, corruption, and double-dealing which ended in the American Supreme Court.
More information about Adele Bloch-Bauer 1 1907 by Gustav Klimt
#5 Christ Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci
The Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci, long thought to have been lost, or perhaps never even actually executed by the artist, was offered at an estate sale in New Orleans in April 2005 where it was purchased by Dr. Robert Simon, a dealer and art historian of Italian Renaissance painting, and his associate, Alexander Parish. The composition was known from two drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, numerous copies, and an etching made by Wenceslaus Hollar in 1650.
The painting that appeared in the small sale was on a cradled panel, measuring 26” x 18 1/2”, and was in a 19th-century gilded frame. It carried an inventory number, 106, in the lower left corner. After its arrival in New York, the same number and the inscription, CC, were revealed, painted in white on the back of the early 19th-century cradle.
#6 – The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse
According to the legend, The Lady of Shalott was cursed in a tower near King Arthur’s Camelot. In Tennyson’s poem, the Lady of Shalott suffers from a curse that forbids her from leaving her tower. She sits in the tower and weaves, only allowed to look upon reality through a mirror. Defying her curse, she looks out the window and heads in a small boat to Camelot. Punished for breaking the curse, she dies before reaching her destination.
Waterhouse depicts the Lady of Shalott in her final moments, as she lets go of the boat’s chain. Her mouth is parted as she sings ‘her last song’. The tapestry she wove during her confinement is draped over the boat. The artist hints at her near demise. In front of her is a crucifix and next to her are three candles, two of them blown out. Candles were often used to symbolize life, and the two blown-out candles signify that her life will end soon.
#7 – Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre Auguste Renoir
The painting, combining figures, still-life, and landscape in one work, depicts a group of Renoir’s friends relaxing on a balcony at the Maison Fournaise restaurant along the Seine River in Chatou, France. The painter and art patron, Gustave Caillebotte, is seated in the lower right. Renoir’s future wife, Aline Charigot, is in the foreground playing with a small dog, an affenpinscher. On the table are fruit and wine.
The diagonal of the railing serves to demarcate the two halves of the composition, one densely packed with figures, the other all but empty, save for the two figures of the proprietor’s daughter Louise-Alphonsine Fournaise and her brother, Alphonse Fournaise, Jr, which are made prominent by this contrast. In this painting, Renoir has captured a great deal of light.
More interesting facts about #7 – Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre Auguste Renoir
#8 – Impression, Sunrise By Claude Oscar Monet
Widely regarded as Monet’s single most famous painting, Impression, Sunrise was completed during the late nineteenth century in 1872. The most significant aspect of the painting is its credit with giving the Impressionist Movement its name.
The imagery of this work of art presents a focus on the calm feeling of a misty maritime scene. Slightly below the center of the painting, a small rowboat with two indistinct figures floats in the bay. The early morning sun is depicted rising over the foggy harbor with ships and other various boats at the port. The shadows of the boats and figures and the reflection of the sun’s rays can be seen on the water’s surface. Monet incorporates a palette of mostly cool, dull colors into the painting with blues and grays. He also includes splashes of warm colors noticed in the sky and the red-orange sun.
More Info about #8 – Impression, Sunrise By Claude Oscar Monet
#9 Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent Van Gogh
Starry Night Over the Rhone was painted in the style of post-impressionism. Like many of his most celebrated paintings, Starry Night Over the Rhone was inspired by Van Gogh’s time spent in the South of France. Though this piece is not as well-known as the swirling Starry Night he would later complete, it remains an important part of his portfolio; in addition to illustrating his distinctive approach to painting “night effects,” Starry Night Over the Rhône captures a rare moment of calm in the chaotic final years of his life.
In Starry Night Over the Rhône, van Gogh captures his characteristic magical starlit sky, peeking through the darkness of night and twinkling off the river. This respite from the darkest of days is a moment of peace. It signifies brightness when the weight of the world feels crushing and inescapable.
#10 – Irises by Vincent Van Gogh
The Irises painting was the first of nearly 130 artworks that Van Gogh completed during his stay in a mental institution at Saint-Remy the year prior to his death. The flowers were growing in a garden in the small outdoor area at the asylum. Van Gogh was allowed to stroll and sit while in the asylum.
The painting represents two groups of flowers, one in violet color and the other in red. There’s a hypothetic diagonal line that, passing through the white iris separates both groups of flowers. When one looks beneath this line, to the irises or their leaves, the sight jumps from one point to another in a certain nervous movement. When one looks at the red flowers the sight rests and remains quiet.
I hope you’ve enjoyed our Virtual Gallery Tour: The Old Masters Top 100 Most Famous Paintings. If you feel inspired to own a piece of art history yourself, these reproductions are very well done, they are hand painted (not a giclee), and are reasonably priced. We’d love to hear your comments below and if you’ve enjoyed this gallery tour, please feel free to share our blog post with your friends. All photos are shareable.
Till Next time … Joy
