Francisco de Goya captures the drama and fury of the bullfight in La Muerte de Pépé Illo (The Death of Pépé Illo). During the 18th century, bullfighting evolved from an elitist diversion into a popular spectacle, and it figured prominently in Goya's life and work. He was an avid fan and even practiced bullfighting techniques in his youth.

This cotton quilt from West Bengal is adorned with a field of flowers in bright colors surrounding an upright linear image that symbolizes the Tree of Life. 

Albrecht Altdorfer painted some of the first pure landscapes in the art of northern Europe. As an illuminator, draftsman, printmaker, painter, and architect, he was one of the leading artists of his native Regensburg.

Adorned with plastic handles, electric blue spheres, and chimney-like finials on the lids, this tea and coffee service brings to tea drinking the audacious forms and vibrant colors of postmodernist design of the 1980s.

Canaletto was renowned in his lifetime for his city views, a subject he embraced early in his career. San Cristoforo, San Michele, and Murano from the Fondamenta Nuove, Venice is an early landscape representing the first phase of the artist's mature work.

Aria After the Ballet, presented at the fourth impressionist exhibition in 1879, has all the drama typical of Edgar Degas's theater subjects. The dancers, but especially the singer at the left, are flooded with light projected from below. At lower right protrude the curving forms of the bass instruments, emerging like comic periscopes from the orchestra pit.

 

Cornelis Saftleven's richly detailed painting offers a humorous critique of academic pursuits. A donkey appears to fall asleep  while reading a book, while a pig lying on the ground is preoccupied with smoking rather than intellectual discussion. Objects such as the playing cards strewn across the ground also hint at idleness rather than scholarly productivity.