#allegory

This is one of three engravings from the same few years that historians consider his best — what it actually means has apparently been argued over for centuries.

Reviewers gave it a kicking when it first went on show, until Ruskin wrote to The Times to spell out what all the overgrown weeds and the handle-less door were meant to mean — after that it caught on enormously, and he painted later versions that were sent round the world. He's said to have done the night parts outdoors in an orchard, sitting out through winter to get the light right.

From what I can find, this was part of a set standing in for the four seasons — the lion's a nod to Leo, marking high summer.

The government reportedly bought this almost right away, then kept it out of public view for years — a painting cheering on revolution apparently made the people now in charge nervous.

I couldn't find a full backstory on this one — it's usually filed alongside Bosch's other moralizing scenes about drinking and excess, but details on why it was made are thin.

This one's sometimes read as a stand-in for painting itself - the model's laurel wreath, trumpet and book are meant to be Clio, the muse of history. Whoever made it, from what I can find, held onto this one for his whole life and never sold it, even when money was tight.

It was painted the year Paris fell to the Prussians, and from what I've read it's one of a small set he made about that war — the smoking city in the background is meant to be Paris itself. Why there's a sphinx in the middle of it, no one seems to agree; even the title just shrugs.