William Shakespeare | Quando quaranta inverni assedieranno la tua fronte..

When forty winters shall beseige thy brow | Sonnet II

When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,

Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:

Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

Frank Benson | Eleanor and Benny, 1916

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.