Botticelli | Venus and Mars, c. 1483

From: The National Gallery, London

Mars, God of War, was one of the lovers of Venus, Goddess of Love. Here Mars is asleep and unarmed, while Venus is awake and alert. The meaning of the picture is that love conquers war, or love conquers all.

This work was probably a piece of bedroom furniture, perhaps a bedhead or piece of wainscoting, most probably the 'spalliera' or backboard from a chest or day bed. The wasps ('vespe' in Italian) at the top right suggest a link with the Vespucci family, though they may be no more than a symbol of the stings of love.

Paul Corfield, 1970 | Naïf Style Landscape painter

Born in Bournemouth, Dorset Paul Corfield has lived within 10 miles of his birthplace all his life. He worked at an engineering firm and painted in the evenings believing that painting would only ever be a hobby and not a career. But in 2002 an opportunity arose for Paul to take voluntary redundancy and hatched a plan was to use the redundancy money to live off that for a year while he painted and painted - he has never looked back!

Rembrandt | Saul and David, 1655-1660

According to the Hebrew Bible, Saul was the first king of a united Kingdom of Israel and Judah. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, would have marked a switch from a tribal society to statehood.

After Samuel tells Saul that God has rejected him as king, David, a son of Jesse, from the tribe of Judah, enters the story: from this point on Saul's story is largely the account of his increasingly troubled relationship with David.

Wyndham Lewis | Vorticism Art Movement (1912-1915)

Wyndham Lewis, in full Percy Wyndham Lewis (born November 18, 1882, on a yacht near Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada - died March 7, 1957, London, England), English artist and writer who founded the Vorticist movement, which sought to relate art and literature to the industrial process.

About 1893 Lewis moved to London with his mother after his parents separated. At age 16 he won a scholarship to London’s Slade School of Fine Art, but he left three years later without completing his course. Instead, he went to Paris, where he practiced painting and attended lectures at the Sorbonne. While in Paris, Lewis became interested in Cubist and Expressionist art; he was one of the first British artists to do so.

John Melhuish Strudwick | Pre-Raphaelite painter

John Melhuish Strudwick (1849-1935) studied at the Royal Academy Schools, where he was not a successful student. Following this, he worked as a studio assistant to Burne-Jones and Stanhope. The influence of Burne-Jones is clearly visible in his work. Stanhope was a highly talented individual in his own right, however, and his paintings may be judged on their own considerable merits.