The Girl With a Pearl Earring depicts a European girl wearing an exotic dress, an oriental turban, and a large pearl earring. The work is oil on canvas and is 44.5 cm high and 39 cm wide. It is signed “IVMeer” but not dated, and is estimated to have been painted around 1665. It resides in The Hague, at the Mauritshuis, where it has been since 1902.

Vermeer wasn’t prolific, with only 36 paintings having been attributed to him, but his mastery of lighting has made him a highly regarded, and this particular work, a ‘tronie’, is considered his masterwork. The dark background originally had a green hue, created using a glaze, but the organic pigments used have long faded.

The Salvator Mundi (“Saviour of the World”) is a painting generally attributed, either wholly or in part, to the Italian Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci, circa 1500. It depicts Christ giving a blessing with his right hand while holding a transparent, non-refracting crystal orb in his left, signifying his role as the ruler of the cosmos. Long believed lost, the panel painting was rediscovered in 2005, heavily overpainted, and subsequently underwent extensive restoration. Its authenticity as a work by Leonardo has been controversial among art historians, with some suggesting the master painted only specific passages or that it’s a work by his studio.

Despite the debates over attribution and its poor condition, the painting garnered worldwide attention when it was auctioned by Christie’s in New York in November 2017 for $450.3 million, setting a world record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction. It is one of fewer than 20 surviving paintings generally accepted as being from Leonardo’s own hand.

Sunflowers is the name of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. He painted the first series, which depicted the sunflowers laying on the ground, while in Paris. The second series, painted a year later in Arles, has the sunflowers arranged in a vase, and it is this version that has achieved cult status in the art world.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born 30 March 1853 and the Dutch post-impressionist painter went on to create around 2,100 artworks, including 860 oils, before his death by suicide at just 37 years of age. Most of his work, including landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, were created in the last two years of a life marred by mental illness and poverty.

The definition of a troubled artist, van Gogh worked as an art dealer, travelling extensively in Europe, and it wasn’t until 1881, just 9 years before his death, that he took up painting. His work became characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork, which became very influential in the modern art movement. Today, his work occupies a rarified place and many are amongst the most expensive works ever sold. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam currently holds the world’s largest collection of his art.

The Birth of Venus is a renowned painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli, completed around 1484-1486. It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, standing on a seashell in a composition that combines classical mythology with Renaissance artistic ideals. The central figure is the nude Venus, whose pose echoes classical sculpture, specifically the Venus Pudica type. To her left, the wind gods Zephyr (accompanied by Aura, or perhaps Chloris) blow her towards the land, scattering roses in their wake. To her right, a waiting nymph, often identified as Pomona or a Hora (Goddess of the Seasons), stands ready to cloak her with a richly embroidered mantle.

Commissioned by the Medici family, likely Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, the work is celebrated for its ethereal beauty, idealised figures, and sensual yet academic portrayal of pagan subject matter. It’s an early example of painting on canvas in Tuscany and is now displayed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Undoubtedly one of the world’s great painters, Oscar-Claude Monet was the French painter that helped found, and gave the name to, the impressionist art movement. Impressionism has, as its central philosophy, the idea that art should take human perception, especially of nature, as a defining quality. They’re almost like snapshots, taking into account the interplay of light on the subject, and taking less formal perspectives.

One of Monet’s great passions was his garden in Giverny, Northern France, which had a huge garden with a water-lily pond. As a result, he took water lilies as a subject, producing over 250 paintings of them in the last 30 years of his life. They sit in many museums around the world, occasionally coming up for auction, where they attract huge attention, and massive sale prices, up to a staggering $54m.