Famous oil paintings – Top 100 for museum-quality reproductions

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Oil painting – The centuries-old technique of the masters

The technique of oil painting, defined by painting with pigments using drying oil as a binder, dates back to the 7th century AD and thus encompasses a wide range of well-known stylistic periods and art movements . Countless famous works of art have been created using this technique.

Buddhist artists in Afghanistan painted the earliest known examples of oil paintings. In Europe, the technique was used by artists from the 12th century onwards.

Many of the most famous oil paintings known to the Western world today were created by European artists, including old masters, in the centuries that followed, following in the footsteps of their Buddhist predecessors.

The history of oil painting in Europe

It was artists from the Netherlands who first adopted the process of oil painting in Europe. Numerous examples can be found in early Dutch painting.

Oil painting in those early times required a laborious process, as traditional oils (including linseed, poppy, walnut, and safflower oil) took about one to three weeks to dry. Oils were sometimes boiled with a resin, resulting in a glossy varnish.

As widespread as the technique of oil painting became, at the height of the Renaissance many famous artists throughout Europe replaced this technique with tempera painting.

valuable oil paintings are still highly sought after at auctions today, and many of the most famous works in oil on canvas are admired with unbroken enthusiasm by countless museum visitors.

So, if you'd like a virtual tour of the most famous and popular oil paintings of the last few centuries, then below you'll find the 100 most popular works of art ever painted with oil paints. Most of these famous oil paintings are housed in top museums around the world in their original form.

Our Top 100

1. Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

Year: c. 1503-06 | Medium: Oil on poplar panel | Location: Louvre Museum, Paris

The ultimate visitor magnet at the Louvre in Paris (where around 6,000 paintings are on display, but 90% of visitors go directly to the Mona Lisa). Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance is perhaps the most famous oil portrait of all time and undoubtedly our number one.

It has been described "the most famous, most visited, most described, most sung about, most parodied work of art in the world." Mona Lisa was painted in oil on a white Lombard poplar panel and is known, among other things, for the bewildering expression of the subject (allegedly Lisa Gherardini, an Italian noblewoman), its atmospheric illusionism, and its exceptionally unique composition.

Since the painting was acquired by King Francis I of France, it is now the property of France and has hung in the Louvre since 1797. Perhaps the most valuable oil painting in the world, it holds a record for the highest known insurance valuation in history: $100 million in 1962, equivalent to $660 million in 2019.

2. The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

Year: 1889 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Location: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City

Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night is considered one of the most famous paintings in Western art and is a dazzling work in oil on canvas, currently hanging in the MoMA.

Painted in 1889, it depicts the Post-Impressionist painter's view from his sanatorium room (with an imaginary village below) in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. While Van Gogh created several paintings of this particular view, The Starry Night is the only one depicted at night. It is considered the artist's magnum opus—his masterpiece.

3. The Kiss by Gustav Klimt

Year: 1907-1908 | Medium: Oil and paper on canvas | Location: Belvedere, Vienna

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian painter associated with Symbolism and Art Nouveau. He created The Kiss between 1907 and 1908. Art experts believe this was the pinnacle of Klimt's "Golden Period".

This shimmering piece was painted with oil on canvas, but Klimt added gold leaf, silver, and platinum to make it shine. The work depicts two embracing lovers (hence the original name Lovers), adorned with Art Nouveau garments.

Today, this famous oil painting hangs in the baroque Belvedere building complex in Vienna, Austria. It is considered a masterpiece of the Viennese tradition (a Viennese version of Art Nouveau) and is Klimt's most famous work.

4. Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer

Year: c. 1665 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Location: Mauritshuis, The Hague

The Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer painted Girl with a Pearl Earring, a portrait in oil on canvas, around 1665.

While it has had different names over the past centuries, it adopted its current name in the 20th century after the earring worn by the girl in the painting (she is also wearing an exotic dress and an oriental turban).

Today the work hangs in the Mauritshuis, an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands, and has been a popular subject in literature over time (including in Tracy Chevalier's 1999 novel "Girl with a Pearl Earring" , a fictional story about the creation of the work).

5. Guernica by Pablo Picasso

Year: 1937 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Location: Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid

The famous Spanish artist Pablo Picasso painted one of his most famous works, Guernica, in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.

This black and white oil painting on canvas depicts suffering people and animals amidst chaotic violence. Picasso painted it in his Paris home after Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy bombed Guernica, a town in the Basque Country of Spain. The bombing had been requested by Spanish nationalists of the time.

Guernica's shocking depiction of the atrocities of war made it what art critics describe as one of the most influential anti-war paintings in history, bringing much-needed attention to the Spanish Civil War.

The enormous painting is 3.49 meters high and 7.76 meters wide and clearly depicts a gored horse, a screaming woman, flames, a bull, and dismemberment. Today, the painting hangs in the Reina Sofía Museum of 20th-Century Art in Madrid, Spain.

6. The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn

Year: 1642 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Location: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Rembrandt van Rijn's painting "The Night Watch" from 1642, also known as the militia company of the 2nd District under the command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, is one of the most famous works in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Another famous oil painting on canvas from the Dutch Golden Age the artist's use of tenebrism

Rembrandt directs the viewer to his most important pictorial motifs through his mastery of sunlight and shadow: the two men in the middle and the woman with a chicken behind them in the left center.

7. Sunrise by Claude Monet

Year: 1872 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Location: Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

The French Impressionist painter Claude Monet created this dreamy work. Sunrise, painted in 1872, was first exhibited at the Impressionist in Paris in April 1874. This oil painting on canvas is also said to have given its name to the Impressionist movement.

Monet portrays the port of Le Havre, his hometown in northwestern France, using a beautiful combination of grey, orange and pink tones.

“Impression, Sunrise” hangs in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, France.

8. American Gothic by Grant Wood

Year: 1930 | Medium: Oil on beaver-skin cardboard | Location: Art Institute of Chicago

Grant Wood's American Gothic, an iconic work of the American Regionalist movement , was painted in 1930 during the Great Depression in America.

The painting, which is currently part of the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, depicts a farmer standing next to his daughter (although she is often mistakenly thought to be his wife).

Named American Gothic after the architectural style of the house in the background, it is one of the most famous paintings of 20th-century American art . It soon gained worldwide fame and is often parodied in American popular culture.

The work was first exhibited outside the United States in 2016 and 2017 at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris and the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

9. The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí

Year: 1931 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Location: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City

In 1931, the Spanish painter Salvador Dalí created his world-famous work “The Persistence of Memory” . The surrealist artwork quickly became one of the most important works of the surrealist movement.

Since its creation, it has been mentioned numerous times in pop culture, particularly due to its most striking features – the “melting” pocket watches .

These soft, melting objects support the artist's theory of "softness" and "hardness," which he researched intensively and which was central to his works at that time.

While some believed that The Persistence of Memory represented Dalí's view of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, according to the artist himself it was "the surrealist perception of a Camembert melting in the sun".

10. Christ in the Storm on the Sea of ​​Galilee by Rembrandt van Rijn

Year: 1633 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Dimensions: 160 cm × 128 cm | Style period: Baroque | Location: Unknown

Another work by the famous oil painter and Dutch master Rembrandt . The Storm on the Sea of ​​Galilee, was created in 1633.

This work depicts the disciples of Christ in a fishing boat on the high seas, struggling in a storm and having lost control of their ship.

One disciple vomits overboard, another stares directly at the viewer while clutching his cap. This is a self-portrait by Rembrandt himself.

Only Christ is shown, maintaining his sense of calm. The scene is taken from a biblical story of Christ calming the storm, from the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark.

The Storm on the Sea of ​​Galilee, known as Rembrandt's only seascape , was last exhibited at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, but was one of 13 works stolen from the museum in 1990. Its whereabouts remain unknown.

11. The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso

Year: 1903-04 | Medium: Oil on wood | Location: Art Institute of Chicago

One of Pablo Picasso's earlier and most famous works is The Old Guitarist , an oil-on-panel painting created between 1903 and 1904. The work depicts an old, blind, emaciated musician hunched over his guitar in the streets of Barcelona.

Picasso was influenced at this time by the movements of Modernism , Impressionism , Post-Impressionism , and Symbolism . He himself lived in poor circumstances during this period. Meanwhile, his close friend committed suicide, marking the beginning of Picasso's Blue Period .

An interesting fact about this famous painting is that, as X-rays have revealed, three different figures are hidden behind the old guitarist. Today, visitors can admire this masterpiece at the Art Institute of Chicago.

12. Irises by Vincent van Gogh

Year: 1889 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Dimensions: 71 cm x 93 cm | Style: Post-Impressionism | Location: J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Another famous oil painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh , painted in May 1889. This is one of several works in a series that were also created at the Saint Paul-de-Mausole institution in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

This beautiful work was created just one year before van Gogh's death in 1890. The irises he painted were located in the hospital garden, and it has been suggested that the style of this series was influenced by Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, as can be seen in many of Van Gogh's.

The painting is loved for its softness and lightness and is “full of air and life”, as van Gogh’s brother Theo described it.

Today the work can be seen at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California.

13. Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez

Year: 1656 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Dimensions: 3.18 m x 2.76 m | Style: Baroque | Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Spanish painter and leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age , Diego Velázquez, painted his iconic work Las Meninas .

It is primarily known for its complexity, as this oil painting on canvas questions the relationship between reality and illusion, as well as that between the viewer and the depicted subjects. Las Meninas is one of the most analyzed works of Western painting.

Although its significance is widely disputed, according to Spanish art historian FJ Sánchez Cantón, Las Meninas depicts the main chamber of the royal Alcazar of Madrid during the reign of the Spanish King Philip IV.

The figures depicted are members of the Spanish court – Infanta Margaret Theresa, along with her ladies-in-waiting, chaperones, bodyguards, two dwarfs, and a dog. At the center is Velázquez himself, looking directly at the viewer and painting on a large canvas. The figures of the king and queen are said to be in the background.

To this day, Las Meninas remains one of the most important paintings in Western art and has been described as a representation of theology in painting, first by the Baroque painter Luca Giordano and by many others after him.

The work is currently on display in all its splendor in a dedicated room at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain.

14. “The Birth of Venus” (La nascita di Venere) by Sandro Botticelli

Year: c. 1485 | Medium: Tempera | Original size: 180 x 280 cm | Style period: Italian Renaissance | Location: Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

The painting by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) depicts the birth of the goddess Venus , arriving on the mainland of the island of Cyprus, conceived in a seashell pushed by the breezes: Zephyr and perhaps Aura .

The goddess is received by a young lady, who in some cases is recognized as one of the Graces or as the Hora of Spring, and she holds a cloth ready to cover Venus.

The Romans equated their goddess of love, Venus, with the Greek Aphrodite, who, according to legend, was born from sea foam after Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw the phallus into the sea.

For the Italians, Venus, as the mother of Aeneas, the ancestor of the Romans, alongside Mars, the father of Romulus and Remus, whose mother came from Aeneas' line, held special significance as proof of the divine origin of their people.

15. “The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles” by Vincent van Gogh

Year: 1888 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Size: 81 x 65.5 cm | Style: Post-Impressionism | Location: Kröller-Mueller Museum Otterlo, Netherlands

Café Terrace is an oil painting from 1888 by the famous Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh . It is often called The Cafe Terrace at the Place du Forum.

When it was originally exhibited in 1891, it was titled Coffeehouse at Night.

16. “Bal du moulin de la Galette” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Year: 1876 | Medium: Oil paint | Size: 31 × 175 cm | Art movement: Impressionism | Location: Musée d'Orsay

Bal du moulin de la Galette is a painting by the French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1876. It is located in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and is one of the most famous works of Impressionism .

The artwork depicts a Sunday evening in the first Moulin de la Galette in Montmartre, Paris.

17. “The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo Buonarroti

Year: 1510 | Ceiling fresco of the Sistine Chapel

The Creation of Adam is undoubtedly one of those works that leaves viewers deeply impressed. This is hardly surprising, as it presents us with an overwhelming vision of God .

Although the original is not an oil painting but a ceiling fresco , the motif is very often replicated as an oil painting .

It depicts how God created Adam from the remnants of the earth. In the painting, Adam is shown on the left, lying almost relaxed on the ground. Michelangelo is said to have painted Adam in this position to show that God had not yet breathed life into him.

According to research by a neuroscientist, the depiction of God, with his helpers and the red cloth, is meant to correspond to a cross-section of the human brain. This was probably intended to reflect the unity of mind and body.

Typical of Michelangelo's work is the use of muscular bodies and the painting of figures that resemble sculptures . This was likely due to the fact that Michelangelo was first and foremost a sculptor.

18. “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” by Jacques Louis David

Year: 1803 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Size: 2.6 m x 2.21 m | Style: Classicism, Neoclassicism | Location: Palace of Versailles

Between 1801 and 1805, the French artist Jacques-Louis David a series of five oil-on-canvas horse portraits of the great military leader Napoleon Bonaparte .

The painting, commissioned by the King of Spain, depicts a highly romanticized version of Napoleon's actual crossing of the Alps via the Great St. Bernard Pass in May 1800, shortly before his victory against the Austrians in the Second Coalition War (1799-1802).

The depiction of a ruler on horseback is based on a long tradition dating back to ancient, imperial Rome. The absence of military elements in this image is intended to portray Napoleon as a sovereign thinker and strategist who achieved his victories through intellect, not weaponry.

Whether the client was Napoleon himself is disputed.

Nevertheless, it has become one of the most frequently reprinted images of Napoleon.

19. “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon” by Pablo Picasso

Year: 1907 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Size: 243.9 × 233.7 cm | Art movement: Cubism | Location: Museum of Modern Art, NY

A famous oil painting by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso , completed in 1907. The painting, which is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, depicts five nude female prostitutes in a brothel in Barcelona's Carrer d'Avinyó (Calle de Avión).

None of the characters are conventionally female, and each is portrayed in a disturbingly twisted and mask-like manner.

The oil painting by the Spanish artist of the century is regarded as a turning point in the history of Western painting and also heralded the emerging Cubism.

20. “The Wanderer above the Sea of ​​Fog” by Caspar David Friedrich

Year: 1818 | Medium: Oil paint | Size: 95 cm x 75 cm | Art movement: German Romanticism | Location: Hamburger Kunsthalle

Wanderer above the Sea of ​​Fog is a painting by Caspar David Friedrich , a German Romantic painter , painted in 1818. It is considered one of the greatest works of Romanticism and one of its most emblematic pieces. The artwork can be seen in the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg.

The hiker, seen from behind, is the central subject of the image, standing on a rocky peak overlooking a mist-shrouded mountain landscape. His dark blond hair blows in the wind. Despite the precarious situation, his entire posture appears balanced, confident, and calm.

In the middle and background of the painting we see a staggered mountain landscape, which is traversed by several banks of fog.

In the background, on the left side of the painting, we see a tall conical mountain hidden behind banks of fog. On the right side, a smaller table mountain can be seen. This is probably the Zirkelstein, a rock formation in Saxon Switzerland .

Caspar David Friedrich, through his multifaceted layering of the various mountains and wisps of fog, manages to create the impression of almost endless expanse. We see the boundless vastness of nature as seen by the wanderer, as if we were standing behind him.

21. The Two Sisters, On the Terrace (1881) by Pierre Auguste Renoir

Year: 1881 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Dimensions: 100.5 x 81 cm | Art movement: Post-Impressionism | Location: Art Institute of Chicago, USA

The title “Two Sisters” (French: les deux sœurs) was given to the oil painting by Renoir himself. The nickname “On the Terrace” (French: Sur la terrasse) was later given to the painting by its first owner, Paul Durand-Ruel .

Renoir worked on the painting on the terrace of the Maison Fournaise, a restaurant on an island in the Seine in Chatou, a suburb of Paris.

The painting depicts a young woman and her younger sister sitting outside with a small basket of yarn. Bushes and foliage can be seen over the terrace railings, with the Seine behind them.

Jeanne Darlot (1863–1914), a future actress, at that time only a tender 18 years old, posed as “the older sister.” It is not known who posed as the “younger sister.” However, it is stated that the two models were not actually related.

Renoir began work on the painting in April 1881 and in July of the same year it was bought by art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel for 1,500 francs.

The painting was first exhibited to the public at the 7th Impressionist Exhibition in the spring of 1882. In 1883, it was announced that it had entered the collection of Charles Ephrussi. In 1892, the painting returned to the collection of the Durand-Ruel family.

22. Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist's Mother) by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Year: 1871 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Dimensions: 144.3 × 162.4 cm | Art movement: American Realism | Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The colloquial name "Whistler's Mother" was given to this oil-on-canvas work for the sake of simplicity. The original title, "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist's Mother)" by James Abbott McNeil Whistler, was rather too unwieldy for most viewers.

The subject is actually Anna McNeil Whistler, Whistler's mother, who posed for this masterpiece when she was living in London with her son in 1871.

The American painter not only painted his mother, but also created a painting bordering on abstraction. Shades of gray and black dominate the painting, as do rectangles in various shapes: a curtain on the left, a picture with a black frame and light passe-partout to the right, and a cropped picture, also with a black frame, at the far right edge of the painting.

While it is an iconic example of American art (it is also called the Victorian Mona Lisa ), Whistler's mother now graces the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The oil painting was first acquired by art-loving French people in 1891.

It remains one of the most famous paintings by an American artist outside the USA.

23. Water Lilies (1906) by Claude Monet

Year: 1906 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Dimensions: 89.9 × 94.1 cm | Art movement: Impressionism | Location: Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA

"Water Lilies" was created by Claude Monet Impressionist style . This famous artwork by Claude Monet follows the typical naturalistic theme of the Impressionists.

Monet painted the same picture several times, but each day the water lilies looked different; the details, lighting, and brushstrokes are very different, which in turn makes each water lily painting unique.

Claude Monet once said that his garden was his passion. He had a pond in his backyard with a Japanese bridge spanning the water, creating a perfect place for him to create his famous works.

In his first Water Lilies series (1897–99), Monet painted the pond setting with its plants, bridges, and trees, clearly separated by a fixed horizon. Over time, the artist became less and less concerned with conventional pictorial space. By the time of the painting Water Lilies, which belongs to his third series, he had completely abandoned the horizon line.

On this spatially ambiguous canvas, the artist looked downwards and concentrated exclusively on the surface of the pond with its group of vegetation, which floated amidst the reflection of the sky and trees.

The painter, by the way, didn't use many earthy colors like browns and earth tones. He mainly focused on cool tones like blues and greens to convey a calming and relaxing atmosphere, just as he felt when he spent time in his garden.

24. The Dance Class by Edgar Degas

Year: 1874 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Dimensions: 85 x 75 cm | Art movement: Impressionism | Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris

When this work and its variations were created in the mid-1870s, they were, apart from history paintings, Degas' most ambitious figurative compositions .

About twenty-two women, ballerinas and their mothers, wait in a pose while one dancer performs an attitude for her exam. Jules Perrot, one of Europe's most renowned dancers and ballet masters, is giving the fictional dance lesson in a rehearsal room in the old Paris Opera, which had recently burned down.

The painting was commissioned in 1872 by the opera singer and art collector Jean-Baptiste Faure. It was one of only a very rare commission that Degas ever accepted. He worked on it intermittently for two years before finally completing it.

25. A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat

Year: 1884 | Medium: Oil on canvas | Dimensions: 207.6 × 308 cm | Art movement: Pointillism, Neo-Impressionism | Location: Art Institute of Chicago, USA

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is the most famous work of the French painter Georges Seurat. It depicts Parisian citizens relaxing and conversing in a park along the Seine.

The work became famous for its use of pointillist technique, a painting style in whose development Seurat played a significant role. Pointillism involves the use of small dots of paint applied in patterns to create an image.

Seurat was only 26 years old when he first showed this work to a public audience at the eighth annual and final Impressionist exhibition in 1886.

In its scope, technique, and composition, it appeared as a deliberate provocation to its first representatives, such as Renoir and Monet. It instantly changed the course of avant-garde painting and ushered in a new art movement that was christened "Neo-Impressionism. "

Seurat died at the age of 31. He created other ambitious canvases, but La Grande Jatte remains his magnum opus. Although the painting was rarely seen in the three decades following his death in 1891, its visibility increased dramatically in 1924 when Frederic Clay Bartlett purchased the painting and loaned Art Institute of Chicago

Since then it has hung there and become an icon and one of the most famous paintings in the art world.

Learn about our rankings from 26 to 50 in the next part of this series…