Famous Paintings Quiz
The Starry Night, The Scream, Guernica, Nighthawks: 15 questions on the paintings everyone recognises.
Which artist painted The Starry Night in 1889 while staying at an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889 from his room at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum, combining the view from his window with an imagined village and that swirling sky. It has hung at New York's Museum of Modern Art since 1941.
Van Gogh considered the painting a failure and sold almost nothing in his lifetime; his brother Theo's widow Johanna did much to build his reputation after his death.
Which artist created The Scream, the image of a figure clutching its face beneath a blood-red sky?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch made four versions of The Scream between 1893 and 1910, two painted and two in pastel, plus a lithograph. He said the idea came during a walk at sunset near Oslo when he felt an infinite scream passing through nature.
The 1895 pastel version sold at Sotheby's in May 2012 for about 119.9 million dollars, at the time a record for any artwork sold at auction.
Melting pocket watches drape over a branch and a ledge in The Persistence of Memory. Who painted it?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Salvador Dalí
Dalí painted The Persistence of Memory in 1931, reportedly inspired by a wheel of Camembert softening in the summer heat. The canvas is surprisingly small, just 24 by 33 centimetres (9.5 by 13 inches), and belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Dalí revisited the image in 1954 with The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, breaking the scene into floating blocks inspired by atomic physics.
Which pop artist exhibited 32 canvases of Campbell's Soup cans in Los Angeles in 1962?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol painted one canvas for each of the 32 soup varieties Campbell's sold at the time, and the Ferus Gallery show in 1962 launched him as the face of pop art. The complete set now belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Warhol said he had eaten Campbell's soup for lunch every day for about twenty years, which is why he chose such an ordinary subject.
Girl with a Pearl Earring, with its turbaned sitter glancing over her shoulder, is the work of which Dutch master?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Johannes Vermeer
Vermeer painted Girl with a Pearl Earring around 1665. It is a tronie, a study of a face and costume rather than a portrait of a named person, and a collector bought it at a Hague auction in 1881 for just over two guilders before bequeathing it to the Mauritshuis.
Tracy Chevalier's 1999 novel imagined the sitter as a maid called Griet, and the 2003 film version starred Scarlett Johansson opposite Colin Firth as Vermeer.
Which French artist is famous for his many paintings and pastels of ballet dancers, including The Dance Class?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas painted and sculpted ballet dancers for decades, often working from the rehearsal rooms and wings of the Paris Opera, and more than half of his works show dancers.
Degas disliked the label Impressionist and preferred to call himself a realist, even though he exhibited with the group.
A stern farmer with a pitchfork stands beside a woman in front of a white house in American Gothic. Who painted it?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Grant Wood
Grant Wood painted American Gothic in 1930 after spotting a small house with a Gothic-style window in Eldon, Iowa. His sister Nan and his dentist, Byron McKeeby, posed for the figures, and the Art Institute of Chicago bought the picture that same year.
The pair are usually read as husband and wife, but Wood said he intended them as a farmer and his unmarried daughter.
Which Viennese artist painted The Kiss, an embracing couple wrapped in shimmering gold leaf?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt painted The Kiss in 1907 and 1908 at the height of his Golden Period, applying gold, silver and platinum leaf to the canvas. The Austrian state bought it before it was even finished, and it hangs in the Belvedere in Vienna.
Klimt's father was a gold engraver, which helps explain the artist's confidence with metal leaf during his Golden Period.
Venus arrives on a scallop shell, blown ashore by the winds, in The Birth of Venus. Which Renaissance painter made it?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Sandro Botticelli
Botticelli painted The Birth of Venus in the mid-1480s, probably for a member of the Medici family, on canvas rather than the usual wooden panel. It hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence alongside his Primavera.
The goddess's pose copies the ancient Venus Pudica statue type, and the figure is so elongated that her neck and left arm are anatomically impossible.
The word Impressionism was coined by a mocking critic after seeing which Claude Monet painting in 1874?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Impression, Sunrise
Monet painted the harbour at Le Havre in 1872 and showed it at the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris in April 1874. Critic Louis Leroy seized on the title in Le Charivari, sneering that it was a mere impression, and the name stuck to the whole movement.
The painting was stolen from the Musée Marmottan in Paris in 1985 and recovered five years later; it went back on display in 1991.
Three customers and a server sit in a brightly lit late-night diner in Nighthawks. Which American painter created it?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper finished Nighthawks in January 1942, saying it was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue in New York where two streets meet. The Art Institute of Chicago bought it that May for 3,000 dollars, and it has been a star attraction ever since.
Hopper's wife Jo, who modelled for the red-haired woman, suggested the title Nighthawks after noting the beak-like nose of the man at the counter.
Which painter's enormous 1642 group portrait of an Amsterdam militia company is known as The Night Watch?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Rembrandt van Rijn
Rembrandt painted the militia company of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq in 1642, breaking with the stiff rows of earlier group portraits by showing the men in motion. The nickname arose later, when darkened varnish made the daytime scene look nocturnal; it hangs in the Rijksmuseum.
The canvas was trimmed on all four sides in 1715 to fit a wall in Amsterdam's town hall, and in 2021 the Rijksmuseum used artificial intelligence to reconstruct the missing strips.
Las Meninas shows the young Infanta Margarita surrounded by her maids, with the artist himself at his easel. Who painted it?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Diego Velázquez
Diego Velázquez painted Las Meninas in 1656 as court painter to Philip IV of Spain, and the king and queen appear reflected in a mirror at the back of the room. The painting hangs in the Prado in Madrid and is often called the most analysed picture in Western art.
Picasso painted 58 variations on Las Meninas in 1957, now displayed together at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona.
Picasso's anti-war mural Guernica has hung in which museum since 1992?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Museo Reina Sofía
Picasso painted Guernica in 1937 after German and Italian planes bombed the Basque town for Franco's forces during the Spanish Civil War. He refused to let it enter Spain under Franco, so it stayed at MoMA in New York until 1981 and reached the Reina Sofía in 1992.
The canvas is about 3.5 by 7.8 metres (11.5 by 25.5 feet) and painted entirely in black, white and greys.
Which painter created The Garden of Earthly Delights, a triptych that moves from Eden through a riotous garden of pleasures to a nightmarish hell?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch painted the triptych between about 1490 and 1510, and nobody knows for certain what he meant by it: a moral warning, a vision of a lost paradise or both. It has been in the Prado in Madrid since 1939.
When the outer wings are closed they show the Earth on the third day of creation, painted in sombre greys as a globe inside a glass sphere.
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All General Knowledge quizzes →About the Famous Paintings Quiz
Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night from an asylum window and thought it a failure. A pastel version of The Scream sold for nearly 120 million dollars in 2012. Grant Wood's stern farmer in American Gothic was modelled by his dentist. The stories behind famous paintings are often as memorable as the pictures, and this quiz tests whether you know both.
The 15 questions cover the painters behind the world's best known canvases, the cities and museums where they hang, and the odd details that make them famous, from Dalí's melting clocks to Picasso's Guernica. It suits anyone who enjoys a gallery visit, art students brushing up on the classics, and pub quiz regulars who always get the picture round.
You will find 15 multiple choice questions here, each with four options. Difficulty: Hard. Most people finish in about 6 minutes, and every answer comes with a short explanation and one extra fact worth keeping.
How to play
Read the question and pick one of the four answers. The correct answer is revealed straight away with a short explanation, then press Next question to keep going. At the end you get your score out of 15 and a full review of your round. Play again any time and the questions arrive in a fresh order. There is no timer and no account.
Good to know before you play
Which paintings are in this quiz?
The Starry Night, The Scream, The Persistence of Memory, Campbell's Soup Cans, Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Dance Class, American Gothic, The Kiss, The Birth of Venus, Impression Sunrise, Nighthawks, The Night Watch, Las Meninas, Guernica and The Garden of Earthly Delights.
How hard is the famous paintings quiz?
Hard. The first questions cover painters almost everyone knows, while the last few ask about museums and lesser known masters such as Velázquez and Bosch.
Do I need to know art history terms?
No. Every question asks about a specific painting, its artist or where it hangs, and each answer comes with a short explanation and an extra fact.
Answer key: all 15 questions with explanations
- Which artist painted The Starry Night in 1889 while staying at an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence?
Vincent van Gogh Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889 from his room at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum, combining the view from his window with an imagined village and that swirling sky. It has hung at New York's Museum of Modern Art since 1941. Van Gogh considered the painting a failure and sold almost nothing in his lifetime; his brother Theo's widow Johanna did much to build his reputation after his death. - Which artist created The Scream, the image of a figure clutching its face beneath a blood-red sky?
Edvard Munch Edvard Munch made four versions of The Scream between 1893 and 1910, two painted and two in pastel, plus a lithograph. He said the idea came during a walk at sunset near Oslo when he felt an infinite scream passing through nature. The 1895 pastel version sold at Sotheby's in May 2012 for about 119.9 million dollars, at the time a record for any artwork sold at auction. - Melting pocket watches drape over a branch and a ledge in The Persistence of Memory. Who painted it?
Salvador Dalí Dalí painted The Persistence of Memory in 1931, reportedly inspired by a wheel of Camembert softening in the summer heat. The canvas is surprisingly small, just 24 by 33 centimetres (9.5 by 13 inches), and belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Dalí revisited the image in 1954 with The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, breaking the scene into floating blocks inspired by atomic physics. - Which pop artist exhibited 32 canvases of Campbell's Soup cans in Los Angeles in 1962?
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol painted one canvas for each of the 32 soup varieties Campbell's sold at the time, and the Ferus Gallery show in 1962 launched him as the face of pop art. The complete set now belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Warhol said he had eaten Campbell's soup for lunch every day for about twenty years, which is why he chose such an ordinary subject. - Girl with a Pearl Earring, with its turbaned sitter glancing over her shoulder, is the work of which Dutch master?
Johannes Vermeer Vermeer painted Girl with a Pearl Earring around 1665. It is a tronie, a study of a face and costume rather than a portrait of a named person, and a collector bought it at a Hague auction in 1881 for just over two guilders before bequeathing it to the Mauritshuis. Tracy Chevalier's 1999 novel imagined the sitter as a maid called Griet, and the 2003 film version starred Scarlett Johansson opposite Colin Firth as Vermeer. - Which French artist is famous for his many paintings and pastels of ballet dancers, including The Dance Class?
Edgar Degas Edgar Degas painted and sculpted ballet dancers for decades, often working from the rehearsal rooms and wings of the Paris Opera, and more than half of his works show dancers. Degas disliked the label Impressionist and preferred to call himself a realist, even though he exhibited with the group. - A stern farmer with a pitchfork stands beside a woman in front of a white house in American Gothic. Who painted it?
Grant Wood Grant Wood painted American Gothic in 1930 after spotting a small house with a Gothic-style window in Eldon, Iowa. His sister Nan and his dentist, Byron McKeeby, posed for the figures, and the Art Institute of Chicago bought the picture that same year. The pair are usually read as husband and wife, but Wood said he intended them as a farmer and his unmarried daughter. - Which Viennese artist painted The Kiss, an embracing couple wrapped in shimmering gold leaf?
Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt painted The Kiss in 1907 and 1908 at the height of his Golden Period, applying gold, silver and platinum leaf to the canvas. The Austrian state bought it before it was even finished, and it hangs in the Belvedere in Vienna. Klimt's father was a gold engraver, which helps explain the artist's confidence with metal leaf during his Golden Period. - Venus arrives on a scallop shell, blown ashore by the winds, in The Birth of Venus. Which Renaissance painter made it?
Sandro Botticelli Botticelli painted The Birth of Venus in the mid-1480s, probably for a member of the Medici family, on canvas rather than the usual wooden panel. It hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence alongside his Primavera. The goddess's pose copies the ancient Venus Pudica statue type, and the figure is so elongated that her neck and left arm are anatomically impossible. - The word Impressionism was coined by a mocking critic after seeing which Claude Monet painting in 1874?
Impression, Sunrise Monet painted the harbour at Le Havre in 1872 and showed it at the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris in April 1874. Critic Louis Leroy seized on the title in Le Charivari, sneering that it was a mere impression, and the name stuck to the whole movement. The painting was stolen from the Musée Marmottan in Paris in 1985 and recovered five years later; it went back on display in 1991. - Three customers and a server sit in a brightly lit late-night diner in Nighthawks. Which American painter created it?
Edward Hopper Edward Hopper finished Nighthawks in January 1942, saying it was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue in New York where two streets meet. The Art Institute of Chicago bought it that May for 3,000 dollars, and it has been a star attraction ever since. Hopper's wife Jo, who modelled for the red-haired woman, suggested the title Nighthawks after noting the beak-like nose of the man at the counter. - Which painter's enormous 1642 group portrait of an Amsterdam militia company is known as The Night Watch?
Rembrandt van Rijn Rembrandt painted the militia company of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq in 1642, breaking with the stiff rows of earlier group portraits by showing the men in motion. The nickname arose later, when darkened varnish made the daytime scene look nocturnal; it hangs in the Rijksmuseum. The canvas was trimmed on all four sides in 1715 to fit a wall in Amsterdam's town hall, and in 2021 the Rijksmuseum used artificial intelligence to reconstruct the missing strips. - Las Meninas shows the young Infanta Margarita surrounded by her maids, with the artist himself at his easel. Who painted it?
Diego Velázquez Diego Velázquez painted Las Meninas in 1656 as court painter to Philip IV of Spain, and the king and queen appear reflected in a mirror at the back of the room. The painting hangs in the Prado in Madrid and is often called the most analysed picture in Western art. Picasso painted 58 variations on Las Meninas in 1957, now displayed together at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona. - Picasso's anti-war mural Guernica has hung in which museum since 1992?
Museo Reina Sofía Picasso painted Guernica in 1937 after German and Italian planes bombed the Basque town for Franco's forces during the Spanish Civil War. He refused to let it enter Spain under Franco, so it stayed at MoMA in New York until 1981 and reached the Reina Sofía in 1992. The canvas is about 3.5 by 7.8 metres (11.5 by 25.5 feet) and painted entirely in black, white and greys. - Which painter created The Garden of Earthly Delights, a triptych that moves from Eden through a riotous garden of pleasures to a nightmarish hell?
Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch painted the triptych between about 1490 and 1510, and nobody knows for certain what he meant by it: a moral warning, a vision of a lost paradise or both. It has been in the Prado in Madrid since 1939. When the outer wings are closed they show the Earth on the third day of creation, painted in sombre greys as a globe inside a glass sphere.
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