Oil on canvas in the context of "Orphan"

Consulting the Oracle is an oil on canvas painting by John William Waterhouse. Waterhouse painted it in 1884; according to Anthony Hobson, "The Illustrated London News described it as one of the principal works of the year". Hobson describes the work as having a "keyhole composition" because a partial ring of women focus upon a single other (the priestess).

Hobson goes on to say that the painting helps "to establish Waterhouse as a classical painter" because of his use of "classical, geometrical structures...the vertical, the horizontal and the circle". When he adds the diagonal, as "in the inclined figure of the priestess" and the out-of-place rug, it is a deliberately added tension.

Jan Alojzy Matejko (Polish pronunciation: [ˈjan aˈlɔjzɨ maˈtɛjkɔ] ; also known as Jan Mateyko; 24 June 1838 – 1 November 1893) was a Polish painter, a leading 19th-century exponent of history painting, known for depicting nodal events from Polish history. His works include large scale oil paintings such as Stańczyk (1862), Rejtan (1866), Union of Lublin (1869), Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God (1873), or Battle of Grunwald (1878). He was the author of numerous portraits, a gallery of Polish monarchs in book form, and murals in St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków. He is considered by many as the most celebrated Polish painter, and sometimes as the "national painter" of Poland.

Matejko spent most of his life in Kraków. He enrolled at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts at age fourteen, where he studied under notable artists such as Wojciech Korneli Stattler and Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and completed his first major historical painting in 1853. His early exposure to revolutions in Kraków and the military service of his brothers influenced his artistic themes. After studying art in Munich and Vienna, he returned to Kraków and set up a studio. He gradually gained recognition, selling key paintings that settled his debts and created some of his most famous works, including Stańczyk and Skarga's Sermon. Matejko's art played a key role in promoting Polish history and national identity at a time when Poland was partitioned and lacked political autonomy.

Water Lilies (French: Nymphéas [nɛ̃.fe.a]) is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840–1926). The paintings depict his flower garden at his home in Giverny, and were the main focus of his artistic production during the last 31 years of his life. Many of the works were painted while Monet suffered from cataracts.

An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster depicted as a large, hideous, humanoid being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the world. They appear in many classic works of literature, and are most often associated in fairy tales and legend.

In mythology, ogres are often depicted as inhumanly large, tall, and having a disproportionately large head, abundant hair, unusually colored skin, a voracious appetite, and a strong body. Ogres are closely linked with giants and with human cannibals in mythology. In both folklore and fiction, giants are often given ogrish traits (such as the giants in "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Jack the Giant Killer", the Giant Despair in The Pilgrim's Progress, and the Jötunn of Norse mythology); while ogres may be given giant-like traits.

The Astronomer (Dutch: De astronoom) is a painting finished in about 1668 by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer. It is in oil on canvas with dimensions 51 cm × 45 cm (20 in × 18 in).

Mr and Mrs Andrews is an oil on canvas portrait of about 1750 by Thomas Gainsborough, now in the National Gallery, London. Today it is one of his most famous works, but it remained in the family of the sitters until 1960 and was very little known before it appeared in an exhibition in Ipswich in 1927, after which it was regularly requested for other exhibitions in Britain and abroad, and praised by critics for its charm and freshness. By the post-war years its iconic status was established, and it was one of four paintings chosen to represent British art in an exhibition in Paris celebrating the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Soon the painting began to receive hostile scrutiny as a paradigm of the paternalist and capitalist society of 18th-century England, but it remains a firm popular favourite.

The work is an unusual combination of two common types of painting of the period: a double portrait, here of a recently married couple, Robert and Frances Andrews, as well as a landscape view of the English countryside. Gainsborough's work mainly consisted of these two different genres, but their striking combination side-by-side in this extended horizontal format is unique in Gainsborough's oeuvre, and extremely rare for other painters. Conversation piece was the term for a group portrait that contained other elements and activities, but these normally showed more figures, seen engaged in some activity or in an interior, rather than a landscape empty of people.

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (French: [lə deʒœne syʁ lɛʁb, -ʒøn-]; The Luncheon on the Grass) – originally titled Le Bain (The Bath) – is a large oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet created in 1862 and 1863.

It depicts a nude woman and a scantily dressed bathing woman on a picnic with two fully dressed men in a rural setting. Rejected by the Salon jury of 1863, Manet seized the opportunity to exhibit this and two other paintings in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, where the painting sparked public notoriety and controversy. The work increased Manet's fame; in spite of this it nonetheless failed to sell at its debut.