From Mona Lisa to The Starry Night, certain images are so famous that almost everybody seems to recognise them. The most famous paintings are more than just popular pictures. Here are 50 of the most famous ones.
Key Takeaways
- Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Andy Warhol are among the featured artists.
- These famous art pieces include oil paintings, frescoes, tempera paintings, and acrylic works.
- Many are still displayed in major collections including the Louvre, MoMA, the Prado, the Uffizi and Tate.
The Most Famous Paintings at a Glance
From the Renaissance to modern art, the most famous paintings we've chosen cover centuries of art history. There are obviously more than just 50 good paintings in human history, but we had to narrow it down to 50 famous ones created by top artists. We've picked the best-known ones, whether for their technical innovation, cultural influence, historical importance or sheer recognisability.
There is no official ranking of the world’s most famous paintings. This list considers global recognition, art-historical importance, innovation, influence on other artists, museum prominence and the extent to which each work has become part of wider culture.
| Painting | Artist | Date | Current location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mona Lisa | Leonardo da Vinci | c. 1503–1519 | Louvre, Paris |
| The Starry Night | Vincent van Gogh | 1889 | MoMA, New York |
| The Scream | Edvard Munch | 1893 | National Museum, Oslo |
| Guernica | Pablo Picasso | 1937 | Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid |
| Girl with a Pearl Earring | Johannes Vermeer | c. 1665 | Mauritshuis, The Hague |
| The Birth of Venus | Sandro Botticelli | c. 1484–1486 | Uffizi Galleries, Florence |
| The Last Supper | Leonardo da Vinci | c. 1495–1498 | Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan |
| The Creation of Adam | Michelangelo | c. 1511 | Sistine Chapel, Vatican City |
| The Night Watch | Rembrandt van Rijn | 1642 | Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
| Liberty Leading the People | Eugène Delacroix | 1830 | Louvre, Paris |
| The Kiss | Gustav Klimt | 1908 | Belvedere, Vienna |
| The Persistence of Memory | Salvador Dalí | 1931 | MoMA, New York |
Famous Renaissance Paintings
With greater realism, linear perspective, anatomy, and a new interest in classical ideas, the Renaissance transformed European art. This art movement has plenty of famous pieces. Works like the Mona Lisa and The Birth of Venus remain instantly recognisable more than 500 years later.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was painted around 1503–1519 and is now housed in the Louvre. Its fame comes from Leonardo's sfumato technique, Lisa Gherardini's enigmatic expression, and the painting's extraordinary cultural afterlife, further strengthened by its theft from the museum in 1911.²
The Arnolfini Portrait — Jan van Eyck
- Artist: Jan van Eyck
- Date: 1434
- Medium: Oil on oak panel
- Location: National Gallery, London
The Birth of Venus — Sandro Botticelli
- Artist: Sandro Botticelli
- Date: c. 1485.¹
- Medium: Tempera on canvas
- Location: Uffizi Galleries, Florence
The Garden of Earthly Delights — Hieronymus Bosch
- Artist: Hieronymus Bosch
- Date: 1490–1500
- Medium: Oil on oak panels
- Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid
The Last Supper — Leonardo da Vinci
- Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
- Date: 1495–1498
- Medium: Dry wall painting
- Location: Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan
Mona Lisa — Leonardo da Vinci
- Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
- Date: c. 1503–1519
- Medium: Oil on poplar panel
- Location: Louvre, Paris
The School of Athens — Raphael
- Artist: Raphael
- Date: 1509–1511
- Medium: Fresco
- Location: Raphael Rooms, Vatican Museums
The Creation of Adam — Michelangelo
- Artist: Michelangelo
- Date: c. 1511–1512
- Medium: Fresco
- Location: Sistine Chapel, Vatican City
Famous Baroque and Dutch Golden Age Paintings
In the 17th century, many painters explored light, movement, and portraiture. Artists like Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velázquez and Vermeer created famous artworks that shaped how we think about light, realism and visual storytelling. Here are just a few of the best paintings.
The Calling of Saint Matthew — Caravaggio
- Artist: Caravaggio
- Date: 1599–1600
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome
Judith Slaying Holofernes — Artemisia Gentileschi
- Artist: Artemisia Gentileschi
- Date: c. 1620
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Uffizi Galleries, Florence
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp — Rembrandt
- Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn
- Date: 1632
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Mauritshuis, The Hague
The Night Watch — Rembrandt
- Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn
- Date: 1642
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Las Meninas — Diego Velázquez
- Artist: Diego Velázquez
- Date: 1656.⁷
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid
The Milkmaid — Johannes Vermeer
- Artist: Johannes Vermeer
- Date: c. 1660
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Girl with a Pearl Earring — Johannes Vermeer
- Artist: Johannes Vermeer
- Date: c. 1665.⁴
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Mauritshuis, The Hague
Famous Neoclassical and Romantic Paintings
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artists painted a quickly changing world. Neoclassical artists looked at order and classical ideas. Romantic painters, on the other hand, embraced emotion, nature, political upheaval and individual experience.
Romantic artists placed greater emphasis on emotion, drama, nature and individual experience. Works such as The Raft of the Medusa and Liberty Leading the People also turned recent disasters and political upheaval into monumental subjects for painting.
The Death of Marat — Jacques-Louis David
- Artist: Jacques-Louis David
- Date: 1793
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
The Third of May 1808 — Francisco Goya
- Artist: Francisco Goya
- Date: 1814
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid
The Raft of the Medusa — Théodore Géricault
- Artist: Théodore Géricault
- Date: 1818–1819
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Louvre, Paris
of the roughly 150 people cast adrift on the raft of the Méduse survived the ordeal.³
Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog — Caspar David Friedrich
- Artist: Caspar David Friedrich
- Date: c. 1818
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Liberty Leading the People — Eugène Delacroix
- Artist: Eugène Delacroix
- Date: 1830
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Louvre, Paris
The Fighting Temeraire — J. M. W. Turner
- Artist: J. M. W. Turner
- Date: 1839
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: National Gallery, London
Famous Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Symbolist Paintings
In the late 19th century, artists challenged academic conventions. They experimented with colour, visible brushwork, unusual compositions and intensely personal ways of seeing the world. The most famous paintings of the time include works by Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh and Munch.
No. Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a woodblock print rather than a painting. Created around 1830–32 as part of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, it remains one of the world’s most famous artworks despite falling outside this list of 50 paintings.⁵
Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night at Saint-Rémy in June 1889. The view partly reflects what he could see from Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, but Van Gogh transformed the landscape with an imagined village, dramatic cypress, and a swirling night sky. Today, the oil painting belongs to MoMA in New York.¹⁰
Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe — Édouard Manet
- Artist: Édouard Manet
- Date: 1863
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Impression, Sunrise — Claude Monet
- Artist: Claude Monet
- Date: 1872
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
Bal du moulin de la Galette — Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Date: 1876.⁶
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Luncheon of the Boating Party — Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Date: 1880–1881
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère — Édouard Manet
- Artist: Édouard Manet
- Date: 1882
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: The Courtauld Gallery, London
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — Georges Seurat
- Artist: Georges Seurat
- Date: 1884–1886
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Art Institute of Chicago
The Bedroom — Vincent van Gogh
- Artist: Vincent van Gogh
- Date: 1888
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Sunflowers — Vincent van Gogh
- Artist: Vincent van Gogh
- Date: 1888
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: National Gallery, London
The Starry Night — Vincent van Gogh
- Artist: Vincent van Gogh
- Date: 1889
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Card Players — Paul Cézanne
- Artist: Paul Cézanne
- Date: 1893–1896
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Musée d’Orsay, Paris
The Scream — Edvard Munch
- Artist: Edvard Munch
- Date: 1893
- Medium: Tempera and oil on cardboard
- Location: National Museum, Oslo
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? — Paul Gauguin
- Artist: Paul Gauguin
- Date: 1897–1898
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Water Lilies — Claude Monet
- Artist: Claude Monet
- Date: 1914–1926
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York
Famous Modern Paintings From 1900 to 1945
In the first half of the 20th century, artists explored what paintings could look like. Limits were pushed, and art's definition was stretched. Artists like Picasso, Dalí, Klimt and Kahlo created some of modern art's defining images.
Pablo Picasso painted Guernica in 1937 after the bombing of the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War. Measuring almost 7.8 metres across, the work's fractured figures and monochrome palette made it one of the most recognisable anti-war images in modern art. It is now displayed at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.⁸
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon — Pablo Picasso
- Artist: Pablo Picasso
- Date: 1907.⁹
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Kiss — Gustav Klimt
- Artist: Gustav Klimt
- Date: 1908–1909
- Medium: Oil and gold leaf on canvas
- Location: Upper Belvedere, Vienna
The Dream — Henri Rousseau
- Artist: Henri Rousseau
- Date: 1910
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York
Composition VIII — Wassily Kandinsky
- Artist: Wassily Kandinsky
- Date: 1923
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
The Treachery of Images — René Magritte
- Artist: René Magritte
- Date: 1929
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
American Gothic — Grant Wood
- Artist: Grant Wood
- Date: 1930
- Medium: Oil on beaverboard
- Location: Art Institute of Chicago
The Persistence of Memory — Salvador Dalí
- Artist: Salvador Dalí
- Date: 1931
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York
Guernica — Pablo Picasso
- Artist: Pablo Picasso
- Date: 1937
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid
metres wide.⁸
The Two Fridas — Frida Kahlo
- Artist: Frida Kahlo
- Date: 1939
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City
Nighthawks — Edward Hopper
- Artist: Edward Hopper
- Date: 1942
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Art Institute of Chicago
Famous Post-War and Contemporary Paintings
Painters continued to break with conventions through abstraction. Works by Pollock, Warhol, Hockney and Basquiat show how famous art increasingly drew inspiration from mass media, consumer culture and contemporary life. Here, styles like Pop Art showed how art could intersect popular culture without even touching on the famous artists of today.
No. 5, 1948 — Jackson Pollock
- Artist: Jackson Pollock
- Date: 1948
- Medium: Oil on fibreboard
- Location: Private collection
Campbell’s Soup Cans — Andy Warhol
- Artist: Andy Warhol
- Date: 1962
- Medium: Acrylic and metallic enamel on canvas
- Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York
Marilyn Diptych — Andy Warhol
- Artist: Andy Warhol
- Date: 1962
- Medium: Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
- Location: Tate Modern, London
The Son of Man — René Magritte
- Artist: René Magritte
- Date: 1964
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Private collection
A Bigger Splash — David Hockney
- Artist: David Hockney
- Date: 1967
- Medium: Acrylic on canvas
- Location: Tate Britain, London
Untitled (Skull) — Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Artist: Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Date: 1981
- Medium: Acrylic and oilstick on canvas
- Location: The Broad, Los Angeles
The Singing Butler — Jack Vettriano
- Artist: Jack Vettriano
- Date: 1992
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Location: Private collection
| Period or movement | Approx. dates | Famous paintings in this guide |
|---|---|---|
| Renaissance | c. 1400–1600 | Mona Lisa; The Birth of Venus; The School of Athens |
| Baroque and Dutch Golden Age | c. 1600–1750 | The Night Watch; Las Meninas; Girl with a Pearl Earring |
| Neoclassicism and Romanticism | c. 1750–1850 | The Death of Marat; The Raft of the Medusa; Liberty Leading the People |
| Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Symbolism | c. 1860–1900 | Impression, Sunrise; The Starry Night; The Scream |
| Modernism | c. 1900–1945 | The Kiss; Guernica; The Persistence of Memory |
| Post-war and contemporary art | 1945–today | Campbell’s Soup Cans; A Bigger Splash; Untitled (Skull) |
Why Are These Famous Paintings So Well Known?
Masterpieces are famous for several reasons. Some paintings are famous because lots of people think they look good. Other paintings are more than just their aesthetics; they're their stories, their historical importance, or just the fact that they've appeared in so many books, posters, films, and advertisements that everybody knows them.
Cultural Recognition
Repeated appearances in books, posters, films, advertising and popular culture can turn a painting into an instantly recognisable image far beyond the museum.
Artistic Innovation
Many famous paintings introduced new approaches to perspective, colour, composition, brushwork or abstraction that influenced generations of artists.
Historical and Political Importance
Works such as Guernica and Liberty Leading the People remain famous partly because they capture major political events, conflicts and social change.
Which is your favourite famous painting?
References
- Gallerie degli Uffizi. “Birth of Venus.” Uffizi Galleries, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/birth-of-venus
- Louvre. “Portrait de Lisa Gherardini, épouse de Francesco del Giocondo, dit La Joconde ou Monna Lisa.” Louvre Collections, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010062370
- Louvre. “Romanticism, Topicality, Sensuality: The Raft of the Medusa.” Musée du Louvre, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://www.louvre.fr/en/explore/visitor-trails/the-louvre-s-masterpieces/romanticism-topicality-sensuality
- Mauritshuis. “Johannes Vermeer: Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Mauritshuis, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/our-collection/artworks/670-girl-with-a-pearl-earring
- Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Katsushika Hokusai: Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave).” The Met, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45434
- Musée d’Orsay. “Bal du moulin de la Galette.” Musée d’Orsay, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/bal-du-moulin-de-la-galette-497
- Museo Nacional del Prado. “Las Meninas.” Museo Nacional del Prado, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/las-meninas/9fdc7800-9ade-48b0-ab8b-edee94ea877f
- Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. “Rethinking Guernica.” Museo Reina Sofía, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://guernica.museoreinasofia.es/en
- Museum of Modern Art. “Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Paris, June–July 1907.” MoMA, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79766
- Museum of Modern Art. “Vincent van Gogh. The Starry Night. Saint Rémy, June 1889.” MoMA, 2026. Accessed 26 Aug. 2026. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79802
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