Camille Pissarro | The Avenue, Sydenham, 1871

"The Avenue, Sydenham" is an 1871 oil painting by a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903).

This work is a product of the Impressionism movement, measuring 48 x 73 cm.

It currently resides in the National Gallery in London, UK.

From The National Gallery, London: Following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Camille Pissarro and his family left France and moved to London.

This picture is one of 12 he painted while in self-imposed exile there.

One of the largest paintings in the group, this springtime scene, with the trees just coming into leaf, would have been completed in April or May 1871, shortly before Pissarro’s return to France.

Camille Pissarro | The Avenue, Sydenham, 1871 | National Gallery, London

Edgar Degas | Combing the Hair, 1896

Women combing their hair, or having it combed, often appear in Degas’s work - for example, in his early Beach Scene, also in the National Gallery.

This late painting is one of his boldest treatments of the subject.

Here, a maid, wearing her servant’s uniform, combs the hair of her seated mistress, who is not yet fully dressed and who may also be pregnant.

Artemisia Gentileschi | Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy, 1620-25

Until its appearance on the art market in Paris in 2014, this picture was only known from a black-and-white photograph.

It has been hailed as one of the most significant rediscoveries of a work by Artemisia in recent years.

It depicts Mary Magdalene, a follower of Christ, who withdrew to a life of solitary penitence and prayer following his death.

Here the Magdalene, alone in a cave and bathed in light, is in the throes of an ecstatic vision.

Artemisia paints her in a way that suggests a real, physical presence.

Artemisia Gentileschi | Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy, 1620-25 (detail) | The National Gallery, London

Pablo Picasso | Family of Saltimbanques, 1905

Measuring 7 by 7.5 feet, "Family of Saltimbanques" is the most important painting Picasso made during his early career. Immediately obvious is the isolation and stillness of its figures. Shouldn’t these acrobats, dancers, and jesters suggest the frolic or at least the forced gaiety of circus performance?

That was not what Picasso had in mind.

For him, these wandering saltimbanques stood for the melancholy of the neglected underclass of artistes, a kind of extended family with whom he identified.

Claude Monet | Snow Scene at Argenteuil, 1875

Snow at Argenteuil / Rue sous la neige, Argenteuil - is an oil-on-canvas landscape painting from the Impressionist artist Claude Monet.

It is the largest of no fewer than eighteen works Monet painted of his home commune of Argenteuil while it was under a blanket of snow during the winter of 1874-1875.

This painting - number 352 in Wildenstein's catalogue of the works of Monet - is the largest of the eighteen.

The attention to detail evident in the smaller paintings is less evident in this larger picture. Instead, Monet has rendered large areas of the canvas in closely like tones and colours of blue and grey.

Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789)

Claude-Joseph Vernet was the leading French🎨 landscape painter (with Hubert Robert🎨) of the later 18th century🎨.

He achieved great celebrity with his topographical paintings and serene landscapes.

He was also one of the century's most accomplished painters of tempests and moonlight scenes.

Vernet was born at Avignon and trained there with his father, Antoine, and with the history painter Philippe Sauvan.

Rubens | Portrait of Susanna Lunden, 1622

This painting is one of the most famous by Peter Paul Rubens🎨 (Flemish Baroque Era painter, 1577-1640) in the Collection of the National Gallery, London.

The title 'Le Chapeau de Paille' (meaning The Straw Hat) was first used in the 18th century. In fact the hat is not straw; 'paille' may be an error for 'poil', which is the French word for felt.

The hat, which shades the face of the sitter, is the most prominent feature of the painting.

The portrait is probably of Susanna Lunden, born Susanna Fourment, third daughter of Daniel Fourment, an Antwerp tapestry and silk merchant. Her younger sister Helena became Rubens's second wife in 1630.

El Greco | The Adoration of the Name of Jesus, 1579

The larger version of this picture is in the Escorial in Madrid, and was probably intended for King Philip II.

El Greco made small copies of several of his own pictures to keep in his studio, of which this is probably one.

The subject is thought to be an allegory of the Holy League, a military alliance between Spain, the Papacy and the Venetian Republic, which was formed to combat the rise of Islam and the Turks.

The Pope, the Doge of Venice and Philip II are shown kneeling in adoration of the name of Jesus, shown in the heavens as IHS, these being the first letters of Jesus in Greek (IHSOUS).