The stories behind the paintings

It is the middle of the night. A full moon hangs over a still lake and shines back from the water, the Milky Way runs across a sky crowded with stars, and on the edge of a dark wood a small family is travelling in secret: a man with a torch, a woman holding a baby on a donkey. Adam Elsheimer painted The Flight into Egypt in Rome in 1609, on a copper plate not much bigger than a sheet of paper, and it is thought to be the first naturalistic picture of the night sky in European art. The picture below is our vintage poster of the painting; the original is shown further down. Vintage art poster by Sapiens Verbum after Adam Elsheimer, The Flight into Egypt , 1609 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). Available from the Sapiens Verbum print shop. 🖼️ Get the vintage poster → License this image → Quick facts Artist: Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), German painter active in Rome Title: The Flight into Egypt Date: 1609 Medium: Oil on copper, 30.6 × 41.5 cm ...

A young man with long, curling chestnut hair looks straight out of a dark background, his face perfectly symmetrical, his eyes calm and steady. He wears a brown coat trimmed with fur and raises one hand to the collar, the fingers slightly parted. To the left, in gold, the date 1500 and a monogram; to the right, a Latin inscription. This is Albrecht Dürer at the age of twenty-eight, painted by himself in Nuremberg in 1500. His Self-Portrait , now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, is one of the boldest images an artist has ever made of himself, because he chose to look like Christ. Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait, 1500. Oil on panel. Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Image via the Sapiens Verbum print shop. 🖼️ Get this painting as a print → Quick facts Artist: Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) Date: 1500 Medium: Oil on panel, 67.1 × 48.9 cm Collection: Alte Pinakothek, Munich (in the Bavarian royal collection since 1805) Inscription: "I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg, portrayed myself in ap...