Cains first crime (1893) by the British painter Charles Napier Kennedy (1852-1898). I like it, despite it’s very traditional painted. A kind of mixture of biblical, historical and oriental fashion. There are Adam and Eve watching their son Cain...

Two examples by the British painter Edmund Blair-Leighton (1853-1922). God Speed! (1900) The Accolade (1901) Leighton pumped out these well done medieval scenes to satisfy the trivial romantic needs of the market. Because of medieval subjects some...

At the Southern Border of Muscovy by the Russian painter Sergei Vasilyevich Ivanov (1864-1910). Ivanov was a member of "the Wanderers" and very interested in politics and Russian history. Here he depicted a raiding party of Crimean Tartars ravaging...

Oedipus (1867) by the French painter Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904). This histrionic painting was very popular and often reprinted. It shows Napoleon in front of the Sphinx. The hero of mankind facing destiny, trying to answer it’s...

In 1547 the Spanish Duke of Gandia conveyed the corpse of the empress Isabel of Portugal to her burial-place in Granada. It is said that, when he saw the effect of death on the once so beautiful and charming empress, he decided to become a monk. The...