Aime-Nicolas Morot | Le bon Samaritain, 1880

Author: Aimé-Nicolas Morot (French painter, 1850-1913);

Title: The Good Samaritan;

Medium: oil on canvas;

Dimensions: Height: 268.5 cm - Width: 198 cm;

Current location: Musée du Petit Palais, Paris.

Born into a modest, actively Republican family, Aimé Morot pursued an exemplary career after receiving an academic training in the studio of Alexandre Cabanel.

Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1873, he used his stay at the Medici Villa as an opportunity to explore the Roman countryside on horseback.

Edgar Degas | Conversation, 1882-1885

During the mid-1880s, Degas repeatedly explored the motif of two or three women leaning on a wooden railing - at the racetrack, on a pleasure boat, or before a landscape - absorbed in casual conversation..

"Degas was clearly intrigued by the visual possibilities of this moment of female intimacy", Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall have written, "making half a dozen variants of the composition with a range of outfits, headgear, and backgrounds" (op. cit., 2007, p. 66).

Renoir | Port de Marseille, le Fort Saint-Jean, 1906

In the early 1880s Pierre-Auguste Renoir made his first forays abroad; he had previously traveled no further from Paris than Normandy. The years of 1881-1884 however saw Renoir in a variety of disparate locations including Algeria, Italy and the French Riviera.

It was on these journeys that he stepped away from rendering purely figure-based compositions, rather creating an interesting series of landscapes to record his new surroundings.

There is no doubt that these travels deeply affected Renoir and his art, and indeed he would return repeatedly to the South of France, eventually choosing to settle permanently in Cagnes-sur-Mer in the early 1900s.

Caravaggio | The Lute Player / Suonatore di Liuto, 1595-1596

The Lute Player is an early work by Caravaggio, who sought above all to convey the reality and solidity of the surrounding world. We can already see the elements of the artist's style which were to have such a widespread influence on other artists.

The figure of a young boy dressed in a white shirt stands out clearly against the dark background.

The sharp sidelighting and the falling shadows give the objects an almost tangible volume and weight.

Caravaggio was interested in the uniqueness of the surrounding world, and there are markedly individual features not only in the youth's face but also in the objects which make up the still life: the damaged pear, the crack in the lute, the crumpled pages of the music.

The melody written on those pages is that of a then fashionable song by Jacques Arcadelt, "You know that I love you".

Caravaggio | The Lute Player | The Hermitage version, 1595-1596

Guido Reni(?) | Portrait of Beatrice Cenci, 1599

Author: Guido Reni (Italian Baroque painter, 1575-1642)

Medium: Oil canvas

Dimensions: 64,5 x 49 cm

Current location: Palazzo Barberini, Rome

A long historical tradition has identified Beatrice Cenci in this portrait.

The young parricide, who was processed and beheaded in Rome in 1599, is immortalized in prison by Guido Reni a few instants before being killed.

Berthe Morisot (French, 1841-1895)

Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (January 14, 1841 - March 2, 1895) was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.

She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.

Peter Paul Rubens | Study of Two Heads, 1609

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish Baroque Era painter, 1577-1640)

Title: Study of Two Heads

Date: ca. 1609

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: Height: 69.9 cm (27.5 in); Width: 52.1 cm (20.5 in)

Current location: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Rubens painted studies of heads after live models and artistic sources, creating a cast of characters that served in turn as models for figures in religious and mythological works.