Flirtation in art: ten courtship paintings from parlours and taverns
A serenade by the stove, a needle being threaded, a whisper over a beer. Ten paintings of courtship in everyday life, from Bavaria to Venice.
Art & Artists
Look closely at paintings and the people behind them. Explore artists, movements and the stories hidden in familiar and unexpected works of art.
The history of tarot, from Renaissance cards to the reading deck
Tarot began as a card game at the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Here is how it became the deck we read today.
Romantic wall art for couples: ten masterworks for a wedding or anniversary
A wedding portrait by Gainsborough, Leighton's newlyweds, a proposal with a rose. Ten love paintings to give, or to hang where you will see them every day.
The Cary-Yale Visconti tarot, painted for the last Duke of Milan
Older than the Visconti–Sforza deck, with Faith, Hope and Charity among its trumps and women knights in its suits. The 67 cards at Yale, and the ones that are lost.
Renoir's couples and the Impressionists in love: nine paintings
A dance in the city, a theatre box, a letter read together in the garden. How Renoir, Sargent, Boldini and Zorn painted modern love.
The Rider–Waite–Smith tarot: the deck that gave every card a picture
Drawn by Pamela Colman Smith for Arthur Edward Waite and published in London in 1909, it became the model for nearly every reading deck since.
Love by the sea: eight paintings of couples on the shore
A honeymoon voyage, a proposal by the harbour, a walk on Skagen beach. Eight paintings of lovers and the sea, from Friedrich to the Belle Époque.
The Palace of Sleep and its two gates of dreams
Horn and ivory gates, nocturnal figures and competing interpretations in the final plate of Le Temple des Muses.
Lovers by moonlight: seven romantic paintings of the night
A balcony under a full moon, a beach in the blue hour, a magic carpet across a red sky. Seven paintings of love after dark.