Artists
The most famous artists in the museums, and where to stand in front of their work: who they were, what they made, and the room it hangs in.
- 20
- Artists, in order of birth
- 67
- Works to look for
- 6
- Museums that hold them
- 1452
- The earliest born: Leonardo da Vinci
Artists
Show
All 20
Painter, 1452 to 1519
Leonardo da Vinci
The painter of the Mona Lisa died in France, and the Louvre has more of his paintings than any other museum in the world: five of the fewer than twenty that survive.
High Renaissance. 5 works in 1 museum
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Picture: Neil Turner, CC BY-SA 2.0
Painter and sculptor, 1475 to 1564
Michelangelo
The sculptor of the David and painter of the Sistine Chapel is represented in Paris by two marble Slaves at the Louvre, the only large sculptures of his outside Italy apart from one in Bruges.
High Renaissance. 2 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1483 to 1520
Raphael
The painter of grace and balance, dead at thirty-seven. The Louvre has one of the great portraits of the Renaissance and a Madonna that was the model for centuries of others.
High Renaissance. 3 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1606 to 1669
Rembrandt
The greatest painter of the Dutch Golden Age, and the most honest painter of the human face. The Louvre has some of his most moving late work, the Bathsheba above all.
Dutch Golden Age. 3 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1632 to 1675
Johannes Vermeer
The painter of quiet rooms and falling light left fewer than forty pictures. Two of them are in the Louvre, one of them the smallest he ever made.
Dutch Golden Age. 2 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1748 to 1825
Jacques-Louis David
The painter of the French Revolution and then of Napoleon. His Coronation, nearly ten metres wide, fills a wall of the Louvre.
Neoclassicism. 4 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1780 to 1867
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
The master of the perfect line, and of the female nude. The Grande Odalisque, with her impossibly long back, is one of the most recognised paintings in the Louvre.
Neoclassicism. 4 works in 2 museums
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Painter, 1791 to 1824
Théodore Géricault
He died at thirty-two, having painted one of the largest and most shocking pictures in the Louvre: The Raft of the Medusa, a shipwreck that was a national scandal.
Romanticism. 2 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1798 to 1863
Eugène Delacroix
The leader of the French Romantics, all colour and movement. His Liberty Leading the People, bare-breasted on a barricade with the tricolour, has become the image of France itself.
Romanticism. 4 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1819 to 1877
Gustave Courbet
The man who said he could not paint an angel because he had never seen one. His huge canvases of ordinary country people, at the Musée d'Orsay, began modern painting.
Realism. 3 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1832 to 1883
Édouard Manet
The painter of two scandals, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe and Olympia, both now at the Musée d'Orsay. Modern painting is usually said to begin with them.
Realism and Impressionism. 4 works in 1 museum
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Painter and sculptor, 1834 to 1917
Edgar Degas
The painter of the dancers of the Paris Opera, seen backstage, in rehearsal and from odd angles. The Musée d'Orsay has the largest collection of his work, the Little Dancer among it.
Impressionism. 4 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1839 to 1906
Paul Cézanne
The painter Picasso and Matisse both called the father of us all. His apples, his card players and his mountain are at the Musée d'Orsay and the Orangerie.
Post-Impressionism. 3 works in 2 museums
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Painter, 1840 to 1926
Claude Monet
The painter who gave Impressionism its name, and its purest form. Paris has him in three museums: the Musée d'Orsay, the Orangerie, built around his Water Lilies, and the Marmottan.
Impressionism. 5 works in 3 museums
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Sculptor, 1840 to 1917
Auguste Rodin
The sculptor of The Thinker and The Kiss. He left everything to France on condition that it became a museum, and it did: the Musée Rodin, in the mansion where he worked.
Modern sculpture. 4 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1841 to 1919
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The Impressionist of pleasure: dances, picnics, sunlight through leaves. His Bal du moulin de la Galette, painted in Montmartre, is one of the best-loved pictures at the Musée d'Orsay.
Impressionism. 3 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1848 to 1903
Paul Gauguin
The stockbroker who left Paris for Tahiti, in search of a painting of flat colour and strong outline. The Musée d'Orsay has the pictures he sent back.
Post-Impressionism. 3 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1853 to 1890
Vincent van Gogh
He painted for ten years, sold almost nothing and became the most loved painter in the world. The Musée d'Orsay has more than twenty of his paintings, from Arles and from his last weeks at Auvers.
Post-Impressionism. 4 works in 1 museum
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Painter, 1864 to 1901
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
The painter of the Moulin Rouge and of Montmartre by night. His posters invented the modern advertisement, and his paintings of dancers and of women off duty are at the Musée d'Orsay.
Post-Impressionism. 3 works in 1 museum
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Picture: LPLT, CC BY-SA 3.0
Painter and sculptor, 1881 to 1973
Pablo Picasso
The most inventive artist of the twentieth century was Spanish and spent his working life in France. Paris has a whole museum of the works he kept for himself, in a mansion in Le Marais.
Cubism. 2 works in 2 museums
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When they lived
Each bar is a life, from birth to death, on one line of time. 521 years separate the birth of Leonardo da Vinci from the death of Pablo Picasso, and 11 of the 20 were alive at the same moment, in 1853.
- Leonardo da Vinci1452 to 1519
- Michelangelo1475 to 1564
- Raphael1483 to 1520
- Rembrandt1606 to 1669
- Johannes Vermeer1632 to 1675
- Jacques-Louis David1748 to 1825
- Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres1780 to 1867
- Théodore Géricault1791 to 1824
- Eugène Delacroix1798 to 1863
- Gustave Courbet1819 to 1877
- Édouard Manet1832 to 1883
- Edgar Degas1834 to 1917
- Paul Cézanne1839 to 1906
- Claude Monet1840 to 1926
- Auguste Rodin1840 to 1917
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir1841 to 1919
- Paul Gauguin1848 to 1903
- Vincent van Gogh1853 to 1890
- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec1864 to 1901
- Pablo Picasso1881 to 1973
Which museum holds whom
Each block is an artist with work on show in that museum. The Louvre has the old masters and stops at about 1850. The Musée d'Orsay takes over from there.
Musée d'Orsay10 artists
Louvre Museum9 artists
Musée de l'Orangerie3 artists
Musée Marmottan Monet1 artist
Musée Rodin1 artist
Musée Picasso Paris1 artist
How to read this page
The choice of artists is this site's: the most famous of those whose work is on show in the museums it covers, beginning with the museums of Paris. They are in order of birth, which is not a ranking.
A work is listed where it is normally on show. Museums move their works between rooms, lend them and take them down for conservation, so before a special journey check with the museum.