The most frequently-painted of Boccaccio’s hundred stories, shown here from Rubens to Frederic, Lord Leighton. But there’s much more to the story than that.
Leighton
Set in a framing story of the Black Death striking Florence, its ten characters each tell ten stories over two weeks. Many fine paintings result.
Why did the Countess of Mercia ride naked through the streets of an Anglo-Saxon town? And who was Peeping Tom?
More paintings of surprise, by Gericault, Gérôme, Regnault, Bastien-Lepage, Morelli, and others.
What made images of women sewing so popular in the late 19th century? Here are some of the best from about 1885 to the Nabis in the 20th century.
Young boys and fishermen – their lives cut short. Artists including Dürer, Géricault, Malczewski, and Michael Ancher paint the tragedy.
The popular story told concisely by Ovid, and painted brilliantly by van Dyck, Leighton, Rubens, Brueghel, and others.
Are these beautiful paintings of women and children just eye-candy for middle-class Victorian women?
Three stories in a single telling, about Helios/Sol, the personification of the Sun. His role in the adultery of Venus and Mars, and his two lovers and their bitter rivalry.
After a brief marriage to actress Ellen Terry, his paintings became symbolist. He claimed to paint ideas rather than objects.
