Best-Selling Art Prints: Twelve Pictures People Actually Hang
Best sellers · Art prints · Updated October 2026
Twelve pictures people actually hang
These are the best-selling art prints in the Sapiens Verbum shop: the twelve famous paintings our readers buy most often, ranked by real orders and refreshed every month. Mythology, scripture, Impressionist light and the quiet streets of the nineteenth century, each one available as a museum-quality print, canvas or framed print.
How we rank them: by the number of orders since the shop opened in 2015, with recent orders breaking ties. A red label marks the paintings someone bought in the last month.
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#1
Argos and Odysseus, 1872
After twenty years away, Odysseus comes home in disguise, and only his old dog Argos knows him. By far our best-selling print, and the one people write to us about.
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#2Bought this month
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, 1868
A wall-sized vision of the old gods falling from the sky as Christ rises in light. Doré at his most theatrical.
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#3Bought this month
Christ on the Cross, 1870
One of the copper panels Bloch painted for the King’s Oratory at Frederiksborg Castle: the hour itself, painted small and close.
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#4
The Lamplighter, c. 1895
Night as a craft: one man, one gas lamp and a wet street at dusk, painted by the Danish chronicler of city life.
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#5Bought this month
The Chess Players, c. 1831
A young man plays chess against the Devil for his soul, while an angel watches over the board.
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#6
Jesus and Peter on the Water
A small boat, a dark sea, and a hand held out to the disciple who began to sink.
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#7
Hylas and the Water Nymphs, 1909
The young Argonaut Hylas, drawn into the pool by the naiads, painted by one of the leading women artists of Victorian Britain.
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#8Bought this month
The Literary Quintet, 1910
Five women, one book and a summer terrace: a reading party caught in the last years before the First World War.
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#9Bought this month
Le Précurseur, 1894
The execution of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, painted as a flare of light in a dark prison.
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#10Bought this month
Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, 1890
A field of young wheat under a restless sky, painted in the last summer of Van Gogh’s life.
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#11
The Houses of Parliament, Sunset, 1903
Westminster dissolving into pink and violet fog: Monet’s London, painted from across the Thames.
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#12
Psyche Opening the Golden Box, 1903
Psyche disobeys one last time and lifts the lid of Proserpina’s box. Waterhouse’s late, glowing version of the myth.
Why these paintings?
Most people do not buy a print to own a famous name; they buy it because a picture tells a story they want to live with. Our best sellers are paintings with a strong narrative at their centre: a dog who recognises his master after twenty years, a game of chess for a soul, a man lighting the lamps at dusk. Many of them come with a full essay on Sapiens Verbum, so you can read the story behind the painting before you hang it.
What you get
Every print is made to order and shipped by Fine Art America, our print partner, in your choice of size, paper, canvas or frame, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. All the paintings on this page are public domain works by artists such as Briton Rivière, Gustave Doré, Carl Bloch, Erik Henningsen and Moritz Retzsch, reproduced from high-resolution images.
Find your next painting
Browse every painting we have explained by artist, period, theme and museum, or plan a visit to see the originals.
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