William Shakespeare | Alle meraviglie del creato noi chiediam progenie

From fairest creatures we desire increase | Sonnet I

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,

Antonio Frilli | Romeo and Juliet (detail)

Paul Delaroche | The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, 1833

"I am assured that I shall, for losing of a mortal life, win an immortal life" - Lady Jane Grey, February 1554.

Since its rediscovery in 1973 and first exhibition at the National Gallery two years later, Paul Delaroche’s The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, 1833, has become one of the nation’s best-loved paintings.

For the first time, 'Painting History' examines this iconic masterpiece in the context of Delaroche’s great historical paintings, particularly the poignant scenes from English history which made his reputation.

The exhibition features seven major international loans of paintings by Delaroche including 'The Princes in the Tower', 1830 and 'Young Christian Martyr', 1854-5 (both Louvre), and 'Strafford on his way to Execution', 1835 (private collection).

Carlo Maria Mariani, 1931 | Metaphysical painter

Carlo Maria Mariani is an Italian painter. His paintings are rooted both in Neoclassicist theory and modernism.

In the 1970s he defended his choice of medium from attacks by art critics by making parallels between the melancholy for the past of neoclassicism and the then trendy conceptual art.

He received international attention in the 1980s with what was called pittura colta ("cultivated painting") and la Nuova Maniera ("The New Style") in Italy, in which he employed old subjects and styles.

Among other things he depicted Andy Warhol as Napoleon and made "improved" and "corrected" versions of works by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael.

Henrik Nordenberg | Genre / Interior painter

Carl Henrik Nordenberg (1857-1928) was a German-Swedish landscape, genre and interior painter, etcher and lithographer from the Düsseldorf School.

Nordenberg, nephew of the genre painter Bengt Nordenberg, followed his uncle to Düsseldorf in 1873, where he received private lessons from him.

From 1873 to 1883/1884 he studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

There Andreas and Karl Müller, Heinrich Lauenstein, Eduard Gebhardt, Julius Roeting, Carl Ernst Forberg and Wilhelm Sohn were his teachers.

Marc Chagall | Paris through my window, 1913

After Marc Chagall moved to Paris from Russia in 1910, his paintings quickly came to reflect the latest avant-garde styles.

In "Paris Through the Window", Chagall’s debt to the Orphic Cubism of his colleague Robert Delaunay is clear in the semitransparent overlapping planes of vivid color in the sky above the city.

The Eiffel Tower, which appears in the cityscape, was also a frequent subject in Delaunay’s work. For both artists it served as a metaphor for Paris and perhaps modernity itself.

Chagall’s parachutist might also refer to contemporary experience, since the first successful jump occurred in 1912. Other motifs suggest the artist’s native Vitebsk.

Marc Chagall | Paris through my window, 1913 | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation