Situated between Marseille and Toulon, Cassis was Samuel Peploe’s first experience of the Mediterranean. In 1913, he gave up his Paris studio and travelled to the South of France: ‘I had grown tired of the north of France; I wanted more sun, more colour; I wanted Cassis.'

Lost Caravaggio that was nearly sold for €1,500 goes on display at Prado in Madrid theguardian.com/artanddesign/a…

'The Refugee.' During the late 1920s David Jagger had established a system of artificial lighting in his Chelsea studio and had become fascinated with the chiaroscuro effects it produced. He produced a small number of intimately observed portraits, of which this work is one.

'Torcello, Venice.' (1930) In his memoirs 'Paint and Prejudice,' Christopher Nevinson relays the personal importance of Venice to his painting saying 'it was the first place to inspire me to be an artist and it may be the last.'

Primarily known for his landscapes and still lifes, Carl Moll painted a number of interiors depicting dining tables from 1899 onwards. In these, he captured the synthesis of natural and artificial light from different surfaces, including tablecloths, crystal glasses, silver

Henry Fantin-Latour painted numerous sketches of fruit and flowers which found huge acclaim in England, less so in his native France. This work of apples (1867) was held in high regard by fellow painters in the Batignolles group whose best-known member was Edouard Manet.

'Interior with a Samovar.' (1890s)
Like his friend Vilhelm Hammershøi, Carl Holsøe's work offers us restrained elegance. Usually, a single person is in a room, but sometimes he would dispense with the figure and invent a composition purely from furniture, sunlight, and space.

'Portrait of Dora in an Interior.'
John Koch worked within a genre of American realism that includes Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper as its luminaries,an intimism invariably painted within the glow of what Dorothy Parker, describing the illumination in Koch’s

A leading member of the Realist movement in France, Théodule-Augustin Ribot is best known for still lifes and kitchen scenes painted by candlelight which helps give a quiet, intimate simplicity to his work, an effect heightened by his masterful understanding of chiaroscuro.

Much

Painted in 1919, Santiago Rusiñol's picture depicts the estate of Sa Coma in Valdemosa on Mallorca’s east coast. His early works demonstrate the influence of the French Barbizon School, often with the inclusion of solitary figures, but the influence of the Impressionists began to

Ernst Neuschul made a name for himself in Berlin during the 1920s and 1930s, producing socially critical art in a style influenced by the post-war New Objectivity movement. Of Jewish descent and an outspoken critic of Fascism, he was targeted by the Nazis and forced to flee from

When Sorolla painted 'Niña en mar
plateado,' in 1909, it was amongst the most luminous, brilliant, and freely handled works he had produced; he was on the threshold of becoming one of Spain's most celebrated artists. The newspaper 'La Nación' reported in 1906 that 'Sorolla is

'The Gate to Warmond.' (1894) Floris Verster was variously called one of the great colourists of Dutch painting and grouped with van Gogh and Johannes Vermeer as an influence on future generations of artists. He's one of the most underappreciated painters of the late Hague School

The Dutch painter Menso Kamerlingh Onnes was initially influenced by the Hague School and then in the 1890s, after meeting the artist Floris Vester, his style in watercolour became freer and much looser. To help with introducing as much light as possible into his paintings, his

In his letters about his first visit to Cornwall in 1890, Arthur Hughes describes painting this work from St Ives looking towards Gurnard’s Head with its vibrant colours and use of reflected light on the water - the distillation of a hot, carefree summer's day.

The entire career of Paul-César Helleu evokes a time of elegance and luxury; his lifetime corresponds to the period of prosperity between France’s Second Empire and the beginning of WW1. This work depicts his wife Alice looking at drawings by Jean Antoine Watteau from the

This still life by Jacques-Emile Blanche from 1889 demonstrates the qualities of his early paintings, how controlled he was in applying paint, and the beautiful harmonious interplay of objects and light: the balanced knife a nod to the genius of Chardin.

'The Singer in Pink.' (1895) Like his close friend Edgar Degas, Jean-Louis Forain drew extensively from the world of entertainment, finding intriguing subjects amongst the spectators at the operas, concerts, and lively sporting events which took place around the city. Charles

Very fortunate to spend most of the day looking through a private collection of drawings by Jean Antoine Watteau. Born in 1684, he died from tuberculosis aged 37 - a contemporary of Voltaire and his art is just as radical because it rejects Christian tradition and embraces a new

'Bashi-Bazouk,' (1869)  French art in the 19thC is rich and strange, not just the genius of Monet, but the fantastic creations painted by
Jean-Léon Gérôme, the most gifted in a line of French realists stretching back to Baron Gros and Paul Delaroche.

But where his predecessors