A ghostly warship, pale as bone, glides up the river behind a squat black tug belching smoke and fire. Beyond them the sun goes down in a blaze of orange and red. J.M.W. Turner's The Fighting Temeraire (1839) shows a veteran of Trafalgar on its way to the breaker's yard, and it turns a routine piece of salvage into one of the great elegies in British painting. Quick facts Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) Date: 1839 Medium: Oil on canvas Collection: The National Gallery, London (Turner Bequest, 1856) Notable fact: Voted the greatest painting in a British collection in a 2005 BBC Radio 4 poll, and chosen for the back of the Bank of England £20 note in 2020 J.M.W. Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, 1839. Oil on canvas. The National Gallery, London. Image via the Sapiens Verbum print shop. A Ship That Fought at Trafalgar HMS Temeraire was a 98-gun ship of the line. At Trafalgar in 1805 she sailed into action directly behind Nelson's flagship, Victory...

She turns her back to you, and the mirror should explain her face - except the reflection does not quite obey. Diego Velazquez's The Rokeby Venus (c. 1647-1651) is a rare Spanish nude from a century that policed flesh carefully. Cupid holds the glass; Venus reclines on black silk; and the gaze becomes a puzzle about seeing, desire, and what painting is allowed to show. Quick facts Artist: Diego Velazquez (1599-1660) Date: c. 1647-1651 Medium: Oil on canvas Collection: National Gallery, London Notable fact: Also called The Toilet of Venus; damaged by a suffragette attack in 1914 and later restored; long at Rokeby Hall, hence the English nickname Diego Velazquez, The Rokeby Venus , c. 1647-1651. Oil on canvas. National Gallery, London. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. A Nude Against the Odds In Golden Age Spain, mythological cover stories made nudes safer. Venus and Cupid supply the alibi. Velazquez still paints with worldly precision: the weight of the body, the...