Art

Rejected canvases that became famous, masterful forgeries, commissions gone astray: the stories behind the works and the people who made them.

225 anecdotes, most recent first.
Highlights

The painting The Origin of the World was hidden behind another painting

The Origin of the World is a painting by Gustave Courbet painted in 1866 at the request of a Turkish diplomat. Having become the property of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, it was concealed in a double-bottomed frame fitted with a mask painted by André Masson. The work finally joined the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in 1995.

2025-12-16

Fingerprints of Leonardo da Vinci are visible on a painting

The version of The Virgin of the Rocks kept at the National Gallery bears fingerprints of Leonardo da Vinci. These traces were left during the execution of the brush sketch and the first undercoat, which corresponds to the painter's way of working. The rest of the work was however delegated to assistants, such as Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis or Marco d'Oggiono.

2026-06-04

A Saint Sebastian deemed too seductive

The painting representing Saint Sebastian by Fra Bartolomeo was denounced for its lascivious charm pushing young women to sin. Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo reported in 1584 in his Trattato dell'arte de la pittura that this work troubled the minds of the faithful and incited them to confess too often. This ambiguity is explained by the representation of the saint, whose ephebe body was directly inspired by the antique figure of Apollo to celebrate masculine beauty.

2025-11-21

He violates orders to save bells

In 1797, a decree threatens to requisition the bells of the Baudeloo Abbey to melt them into cannons. Charles Van Hulthem decides to exceed his official duties as president of the jury to preserve them. He writes in parallel to the Minister of the Interior Pierre Bénézech to defend the artistic heritage and wins his case.

2026-10-15

Tattooing is officially recognized as an art form

Tattooing was recognized as an artistic expression in October 2023 by the Académie des Arts-Sciences-Lettres. This cultural institution marked a turning point by awarding its vermeil medal to this practice. The prize was thus awarded for the first time to a professional in the field, the tattoo artist Mikael de Poissy.

2026-10-12

A crucial oversight in the Omar Raddad case

Omar Raddad is a gardener whose shoes bore particles indicating his presence in a cellar, contradicting his initial statements. The accused had first claimed not to have gone down there for two months, before remembering on February 18 that he had stored flower pots there shortly before the murder. This change in behavior and this lie led Judge Renard to doubt the gardener's innocence, according to remarks reported by Ève Livet.

2026-10-12

The oldest cave paintings in the world are in Indonesia

Sulawesi and Borneo house the oldest known cave paintings in the world. These parietal artworks have survived the millennia and testify to the very ancient human occupation of the region. They have been dated by scientists between 40,000 and 60,000 years, well before the arrival of Austronesian migrations.

2026-10-11

The green iguana sees ultraviolet light with its eyes

The green iguana is an arboreal reptile equipped with specific ocular cells called double cones. This specificity provides it with excellent color perception and helps it distinguish the ultraviolet range. This visual ability allows it to expose itself effectively to sunlight in order to absorb the UVA and UVB rays essential for synthesizing its vitamin D.

2026-10-11

The word loupe has several unexpected meanings in Rimbaud's work

Line eleven of the poem Vénus anadyomène contains the word loupe, which is the subject of multiple interpretations by exegetes. According to the reference dictionary in the nineteenth century, the term could designate a tumor under the skin or a wooden crate on which painters sat to work. The researcher Seth Whidden also points out that in the slang of the time, louper meant to drink a glass, which added an ironic nuance according to the critic Steve Murphy.

2026-10-11

Arthur Rimbaud inverted the famous Venus by Botticelli

Rimbaud's poem Vénus anadyomène depicts a repulsive deity by overturning the traditional codes of feminine praise. The critic Gerald Macklin notes that the text takes the exact opposite stance of Botticelli's painting by showing the goddess from behind. This position stages an anal ulcer, representing the exact opposite of the intimate parts modestly hidden by hair in the Italian master's work.

2026-10-11

Auguste Mariette discovered the statue of Khafre

Auguste Mariette unearthed in 1860 a famous statue of Khafre representing the pharaoh protected by the falcon Horus. This discovery was made in a pit dug into the floor of the north vestibule of the valley temple. This masterpiece of Egyptian statuary is now exhibited at the Cairo Museum.

2026-10-11

Shahrukh Khan faces the wrath of Hindu nationalists

Shahrukh Khan is an influential figure in Indian cinema whose positions and lifestyle displease the current government. In 2015, he denounced the country's religious intolerance after the murder of a Muslim man, which earned him a comparison to a terrorist by a minister. His eldest son was also arrested in October 2021 during a police raid on a boat, a case that many observers consider a political intimidation maneuver.

2026-10-11

Ten years of writing for a single art article

Art historian Alfred Neumeyer spent ten years writing an article entirely dedicated to the painting The Boy with a Squirrel. Published in 1954, this text describes the work as the greatest tribute to European Baroque. The author also sees in it the expression of the highest Enlightenment concepts and an intense curiosity for the material world.

2026-10-11

The radical uniform change of the Lithuanian Tatars

The Lithuanian Tatars of the Imperial Guard originally wore a green coat and a scarlet vest. In 1813, this outfit was modified and the green coat became entirely scarlet while the red vest was replaced by yellow. The trousers also underwent a major change by switching from green to the color indigo.

2026-10-11

Rimbaud's Venus was inspired by Proudhon and Courbet

The poem Vénus anadyomène by Arthur Rimbaud has close links with a work by the thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon published in 1865. In this text on art, Proudhon describes from memory the painting Les Baigneuses by Gustave Courbet, moving away from the original canvas to stick to the poet's unflattering portrait. The critic Gerhard Butters thus concludes that this sonnet constitutes a poetic transposition of this particular vision of Courbet.

2026-10-10

Chanel created a temporary tattoo kit

The sticker tattoo left chewing gum packets to enter the world of luxury. The quality of these designs improved over the years to become true accessories similar to jewelry. In 2010, the Chanel fashion house marketed a kit named Les Trompe-l'Œil de Chanel for its Parisian fashion show.

2026-10-10

An adventurous artistic delivery in the 18th century

Boy with a Flying Squirrel is a painting created by John Singleton Copley in Boston. The artist entrusted his work to a team of several intermediaries to cross the ocean, thus avoiding the risks of a maritime shipwreck. The canvas thus transited between the hands of Roger Hale, Captain R. G. Bruce, and Lord Buchan before arriving at Joshua Reynolds in 1766.

2026-10-06

A Chinese artist revolutionized the backgrounds of Bambi

Tyrus Wong was hired in 1938 as a simple in-betweener on the film Bambi. He created watercolors of landscapes inspired by the Chinese pictorial tradition during his weekends. Impressed, Walt Disney promoted him to the art department to design most of the forest backgrounds for the feature film.

2026-10-04

Balzac ruined his health and career for a palace

In 1846, the writer Honoré de Balzac bought the chartreuse Beaujon in Paris with the money of the countess Hanska to turn it into a sumptuous palace. He dedicated all his time to decorating this place with antique furniture and master paintings to the detriment of his literary work. Upon returning from Ukraine, he exhausted himself on novels that remained unfinished at his death, and the building that was to become the Balzac museum was finally destroyed.

2026-10-04

Balzac wrote his novels in secret at the Château de Saché

The Château de Saché is a residence in Touraine where the writer Balzac came to escape Paris and his creditors. He wrote great novels there such as Le Père Goriot, Illusions perdues or La Recherche de l'absolu. His small room on the second floor has been kept as it was and the site became a museum in 1951.

2026-10-04

La Revue parisienne was written entirely by Balzac

La Revue parisienne is a short-lived publication written almost entirely by Honoré de Balzac. In 1840, Armand Dutacq offered to finance this monthly magazine to help him compete with other serial writers. During three issues, the writer published fierce literary critiques and a rare tribute to Stendhal, before ending the experiment on September 25, 1840.

2026-10-04

Honoré de Balzac's fake nobility

Honoré de Balzac added a noble particle to his own surname to give himself an aristocratic veneer. He went as far as having fake coats of arms painted on the carriage he had rented to travel to Vienna. This trip was intended to meet Mme Hańska, with whom he was having a long affair.

2026-10-04

The true origin of the character Falstaff

Falstaff is a theatrical character born from a name change imposed on Shakespeare, who transformed the surname of the knight John Fastolf. The latter was unjustly accused of cowardice at the Battle of Patay, a colossal error that Shakespeare wrongly repeated in his plays. To add to the confusion, the playwright used for his character a Southwark inn similar to the one the real Fastolf owned in the 15th century.

2026-10-04

A fabric was worth a human life on Fais

The machi is a traditional fabric from the island of Fais that was once worth the equivalent of a human life. In the event of manslaughter, offering this textile piece to the victim's family sufficed as a gesture of apology and reconciliation. Still today, this object possesses a strong symbolic value and remains used during apology ceremonies or to accompany the deceased during funerals.

2026-10-04

Fifteen layers of paint for the Maison Gabrielle-Roy

The Maison Gabrielle-Roy underwent a major restoration to return to its 1918 appearance. The provincial government's historical services conducted an in-depth study to identify the original color beneath the fifteen layers of paint accumulated over time. This titanic project carried out from 1997 to 2003 cost 650,000 Canadian dollars.

2026-10-04

The iconic Ramones photo cost a pittance

The cover of the first album by the punk rock band Ramones was purchased for only 125 dollars by the label Sire Records. This iconic black and white image, taken by photographer Roberta Bayley, showed the members leaning against a brick wall in New York. This visual style was then widely copied by other major bands like The Clash, The Jam, and The Saints from the following year.

2026-10-04

A bird impossible to find with the cries of a warthog

The Platen's rail is a forest bird whose inaccessible habitat and discretion greatly complicate observation. The species manifests itself through a snoring sound reminiscent of the voice of a black warthog, which allowed the researcher Gerd Heinrich to shoot it in 1932. Since the first collections led by Carl Constantin Platen, only about ten specimens of the animal have been able to be studied.

2026-10-04