Pietro Perugino | The Certosa di Pavia Altarpiece, 1496-1500

Pietro Perugino (Italian Early Renaissance painter, ca.1445-1523) painted this altarpiece for the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza.

It stood in the side chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael in the Carthusian monastery (also known as a charterhouse or certosa) in Pavia, a town outside Milan.

The Duke was captured by invading French forces in 1499, and the altarpiece was completed in the early sixteenth century by two other painters: Fra Bartolommeo and Mariotto Albertinelli.

Hyacinthe Collin de Vermont | Allegories of the Four Seasons

Hyacinthe Collin de Vermont | Autumn from Allegories of the Four Seasons

Hyacinthe Collin de Vermont (19 January 1693, Versailles - 16 February 1761, Paris) was a French painter🎨.

He was born into a prosperous family: his father was a teacher and engineer, and his brother François Collin de Blamont (1690-1760) was Surintendant de la Musique de la Chambre.

Collin de Vermont was a pupil of Jean Jouvenet and Hyacinthe Rigaud.

In 1715 Collin came second in the Prix de Rome competition with the Gratitude of the People towards Judith (untraced).

Edwin Austin Abbey | Pre-Raphaelite painter / Illustrator

Edwin Austin Abbey, American painter🎨 and one of the foremost illustrators of his day.

While working as an illustrator for the publishing house of Harper and Brothers, New York City, Abbey began to create illustrations for the poems of Robert Herrick in 1874.

He went on to create illustrations for some of the works of Oliver Goldsmith and William Shakespeare🎨.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter.

In his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.

During his life he enjoyed significant popularity in France and the United States, was given numerous official honors, and received top prices for his work.

As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde. By the early twentieth century, Bouguereau and his art fell out of favor with the public, due in part to changing tastes.

In the 1980s, a revival of interest in figure painting led to a rediscovery of Bouguereau and his work.

Throughout the course of his life, Bouguereau executed 822 known finished paintings, although the whereabouts of many are still unknown.

Edgar Degas: "People call me the painter of dancing girls.."

• "Do it again, ten times, a hundred times. Nothing in art must seem to be an accident, not even movement".

• "Bisogna rifare dieci volte, cento volte lo stesso soggetto. Niente, in arte, deve sembrare dovuto al caso".