News

The Birth of Venus Isn't a Birth: She's Arriving, and Her Hair Is Real Gold
The Uffizi says Botticelli's Venus is arriving on Cyprus, not being born. Tempera on canvas, 172.5 × 278.5 cm, room A12, hair gilded with gold, plus what the 1986–87 restoration found. Read more...
Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893, Nasjonalmuseet Oslo: a figure on a road above a blue fjord raises its hands to its head under a sky of red and orange bands
The Scream: Nobody in the Picture Is Screaming (and Munch Wrote the 'Madman' Graffiti)
Munch's scream passes through nature; the figure hears it. Our print is the first painted version, 1893, Nasjonalmuseet Oslo, tempera and crayon on cardboard, and the pencil "madman" line in... Read more...
Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, about 1665, Mauritshuis
Girl with a Pearl Earring: no one's portrait, and the black was a green curtain
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring (Mauritshuis, c. 1665) is a tronie, not a portrait. The background was once a green curtain, and the pearl is two strokes of paint... Read more...
Vincent van Gogh, Almond Blossom, 1890: white almond blossom on twisting branches against a clear blue sky
Van Gogh's Almond Blossom: painted for a baby, hung over a piano
Van Gogh painted Almond Blossom in February 1890 for his newborn nephew's bedroom. Theo and Jo hung it over the piano, the family never sold it, and the boy founded... Read more...
Vincent van Gogh, Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum), 1888: a gas-lit yellow café awning on a cobbled square under a starry blue sky (Kröller-Müller Museum, KM 108.565)
Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night: a night painting made at night
Van Gogh painted Café Terrace at Night on the spot, by gaslight, in Arles around 16 September 1888, with no black and his first starry sky. Here's what the Kröller-Müller... Read more...
Claude Monet, Water Lily Pond, 1900: a green arched footbridge over a pond of water lilies (Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.441)
Monet's Japanese Bridge: one bridge, eighteen pictures
Monet's "Japanese Bridge" in Chicago is catalogued as Water Lily Pond, 1900, one of 18 versions he painted in 1899–1900. Here's what the record says, and which one we print. Read more...
Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, Saint-Rémy, June 1889, MoMA 472.1941
Van Gogh's The Starry Night: Painted by Day From a Remembered Dawn, Not a Night Sketch
MoMA's The Starry Night (Saint-Rémy, June 1889) was painted in daytime sessions, with an imagined village and Venus seen at dawn. Not the 1888 Rhône picture. Sources inside. Read more...
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1887, The Met 49.41
Van Gogh's Sunflowers, 1887: Two Cut Heads in Paris, Not the Arles Vase
The Met's 1887 Sunflowers is a small Paris canvas of two cut heads on blue, not the Arles vase. Which canvas this print reproduces, with sources. Read more...
Katsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave), ca. 1830-32, The Met JP1847
Hokusai's Great Wave: there is no single original — which impression is this?
The Great Wave is a woodblock print, made in editions. The Met alone holds four impressions. Ours reproduces JP1847, the Havemeyer sheet. Read more...
Henri-Edmond Cross, The Artist's Garden at Saint-Clair, 1904–5. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 48.10.7, CC0.
Cross's Garden at Saint-Clair: a Watercolor, Not an Oil, and One of Two at The Met
Henri-Edmond Cross's The Artist's Garden at Saint-Clair (1904–5) is a watercolor, Met 48.10.7, and not the 1908 Lehman sheet of the same garden. The Fact-Gap, from The Met's record. Read more...
Odilon Redon, Bouquet in a Chinese Vase, ca. 1912–14. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 64.266, CC0.
Redon's Bouquet in a Chinese Vase: Oil, Not Pastel, and Not "Bouquet of Flowers"
The Met titles it Bouquet in a Chinese Vase: oil on canvas, ca. 1912–14, 64.266. Not the pastel Bouquet of Flowers. The Fact-Gap, from The Met's record. Read more...
Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), 1913. Art Institute of Chicago, CC0.
Kandinsky's Improvisation 30 (Cannons): the war painting he said isn't about war
Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), 1913, has cannons in it, but Kandinsky said its true contents are form and color. The Fact-Gap, from the Art Institute of Chicago record. Read more...
Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1906 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1157): lily pad clusters at lower left and upper right around a channel of reflected sky
Monet's Water Lilies, 1906: not the Paris murals — the Chicago canvas explained
Monet painted about 250 Water Lilies. The 1906 canvas at the Art Institute of Chicago (1933.1157) is a nearly square easel painting, under a meter wide, not the Orangerie murals... Read more...
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.455): a young woman in navy and a red hat beside a child on a terrace over the Seine
Renoir's Two Sisters (On the Terrace): they aren't sisters — who they really are
Renoir's Two Sisters (1881, Art Institute of Chicago) shows the actress Jeanne Darlaud and an unrelated child, painted at the Restaurant Fournaise, Chatou. Where the title came from. Read more...
Vincent van Gogh, Irises, 1890 (The Met, 58.187): violet irises in a pitcher against a faded pink ground
Van Gogh's Irises: 1889 or 1890 — which one is which, and why the purple turned blue
Three famous Van Gogh iris paintings. Getty 1889 garden vs Met and Van Gogh Museum 1890 bouquets — and why the purple faded to blue. Read more...