The Barbizon School included a group of French artists who worked in the French village of Barbizon during the middle of the 19th century. They focused on painting French nature and rural scenes, revolutionizing the concept of landscape painting. Barbizon School artists like Camille Corot, François Daubigny, and Jean-François Millet were important precursors to Impressionism. Read on to learn five important facts about the Barbizon School and its artists.

1. The Barbizon School Emerged in a French Village With the Same Name

Despite the label of an art movement, the Barbizon School never existed as a body of art theory formulated in a manifesto with a precise list of participants. The name for the movement came from the Barbizon village located near the Fontainebleau forest, not far from Paris. In the mid-19th century, this picturesque village turned into an artists’ colony and a place where landscape painting was transformed once and for all. Back then, it was a rather remote and underdeveloped location that was made accessible only after the significant development of railroads in the region.

At the time of the Barbizon School’s activity, Barbizon had only one street and around 40 houses in total. Today, the small city hotel the artists used to stay in has been transformed into a museum. Like many art movements of the century, the Barbizon School opposed rigid standards of art education and artistic practice of the time. Artists usually worked inside their ateliers and trained by copying antique sculptures and Old Masters paintings. The primary focus was on historical and religious painting, battle scenes, and mythology. The Barbizon School presented a relevant alternative to it, addressing contemporary reality.

2. The School Subverted the Concept of Landscape Painting

Before the Barbizon School, landscape painting was considered to be mostly a backdrop to the central events of the painting—a religious, mythological, or historical scene or a commissioner’s portrait. Gradually, landscapes started to grow symbolic qualities and were used as religious allegories.

Preference of certain landscapes for a while stood in the way of creative progress. Italian vineyards, fields, and antique ruins were deemed the most worthy of subjects. It took a while before the artists started to rely on scenes that were close to their disposal. In particular, such an approach was employed by the Dutch landscape artists in the 17th century. These landscapes quickly gained prominence as alternatives to religious paintings that fell out of favor after the Reformation. They were generally small, rarely symbolic, and usually intended as decorations.

Most frequently, the landscape was constructed rather than recreated. The famous English artist Thomas Gainsborough used stones, pieces of broccoli, and moss to create small artificial landscapes he would later turn into paintings. Even if a painted landscape was inspired by a real scene, it was nonetheless improved by adding extra elements or removing those that ruined artistic harmony. Nature, as it turned out, was never as harmonious as Western artists of the time would have liked it to be. Landscape as an expressive method was fully employed by the artists of Romanticism. In their works, imaginary nature became a character that interacted with human protagonists and illustrated their spiritual and emotional turmoil.

The Barbizon School took a different approach. They valued natural scenes as they were and aimed to preserve the effects of natural light and space in their painted scenes. Instead of painting imaginary tropical jungles or traveling to Italy, which had been the favorite artistic spot for centuries, Barbizon School artists started to look for subject matter in their homeland. French villages, small rivers, fields, and forests at home were similarly worthy of depiction and adoration. Some of their predecessors already shared a similar point of view.

Although it is hardly obvious to us today, in the 19th century, the members of the Barbizon School made a radical gesture that was quite shocking and provocative. Even the mere decision to leave the capital and its art institutions for a remote village with one street and no post office was a statement of sorts. By choosing Barbizon, these artists declared their commitment to finding inspiration and sources for their art in real life.

3. Critics Were Not Enthusiastic About Their Work

In the first years of the movement, the critical reception of the Barbizon School was largely negative. Critics who were used to grandiose and expressive scenes were offended by the mundane and all-too-familiar scenes of French villages and forests. Muddy roads, shabby old churches, and farm animals were allegedly too far removed from the notions of good taste and aesthetic harmony. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot started his career as a conventional Salon painter but found it insufficient. After his transition, critics labeled his works as naive and awkward, refusing to show his pieces at the Paris Salon.

One of the most scandalous works of the School was Jean-François Millet’s painting of wheat gleaners at work, with their backs bent uncomfortably. Critics were outraged that Millet placed peasants on the same pedestal as ancient heroes by focusing an entire painting on their work. The upper classes, afraid of yet another revolution that would endanger their privileges, reacted to the work with poorly concealed anger. The farm workers on whose labor these privileges were built greatly outnumbered the higher classes and could cause a threat if they managed to recognize their worth.

Soon, Gustave Courbet and his Realist painting would shatter the remaining conventions one more time, demonstrating uncompromising honesty and refusal to ask for his place in art history. Courbet simply came and took it, bringing his poor farmers, stone breakers, and provincial crowds with him.

4. They Focused on the Effects of Light

The painters of the Barbizon School rarely painted bright and sunny days, preferring the complex play of light and shadow under clouded skies. In terms of time, they also preferred transitional periods when the sun was either setting or just rising. They relied on soft forms and loose brushwork to show the hazy atmosphere of fields and forests.

Charles-Francois Daubigny built a boat that doubled as an artist’s studio. Equipped with easels, paints, and brushes, he traveled French rivers and painted his works directly from the boat. Such a position allowed him to find new angles and to capture the play of light in water that transformed the landscapes around him. Daubigny disliked the subjective component of Romantic painting and believed that images of nature should not incorporate the artist’s bias. Often, he deliberately chose scenes that were not the most aesthetically pleasing for representation to avoid commentaries on the poetic qualities of his work. Later, Claude Monet would find inspiration in his method and build a similar traveling studio on a boat.

5. The Barbizon School Was the Precursor of Impressionism

The invention of portable paint tubes allowed artists to work outside of their studios, and the Barbizon School artists were among the first to take advantage of this opportunity. The change of location affected the style and quality of the painting, as well as its relation to the reality it was modeled from. The Barbizon School landscapes were spatially and temporarily connected to places they were inspired by and thus contained fewer assumptions and imagined elements. Their paintings contained the immediate impression of natural scenes in the moment while the feelings were still fresh.

Impressionism blended the technical and conceptual ideas of the Barbizon School with contemporary studies in light and optics. The famous Impressionists Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet were affiliated with the School and drew inspiration from it. There were, however, other important movements influenced by the School. Barbizon painter Theodore Rousseau preferred a more somber palette and spaces enclosed by trees and other natural elements. His human figures were usually small, nearly lost in the vast and overpowering landscape. In their nature, Rousseau’s works were much closer to Realist painting in their dark and provocative sincerity.

Sigmar Polke’s works were both whimsical and mystical, ironic and politically sharp. He made political statements, provoked conversations, and transgressed the boundaries of contemporary art. For the 1986 Venice Biennale, Sigmar Polke designed a pavilion that changed color in response to weather and human presence. Read on to learn more about 8 important works created by the amazing Sigmar Polke.

1. Sigmar Polke’s Early Works: Chocolate Painting, 1964

In 1964, while still studying at the Dusseldorf Art Academy, Sigmar Polke started rethinking the cultural and political divide his country faced after the war. As a child, he lived in East Germany before his parents escaped to the West. Disenchanted with both promises of Communism in the East and Capitalism in the West, Polke developed a short-lived art movement he called Capitalist Realism. It relied on contemporary capitalist aesthetics in opposition to Soviet Socialist Realism and was visually similar to Pop Art.

Before Pop Art, food was mostly present in art in the form of raw or homemade products like fruit, meat, or freshly baked bread. As the mode of consumption changed from making the products to simply purchasing them, the imagery of food transformed. Instead of products, customers began to choose between brands and manufacturers. This tendency was reflected in Pop Art paintings that copied popular packages and logos. However, Sigmar Polke’s work, in that sense, was different from others. His food paintings from the 1960s did not feature any particular brands. Rather, the works represented a familiar aesthetic of popular capitalist consumerism that triggered the desire to buy.

2. Bunnies, 1966

Bunnies was the next step in Polke’s work, where he began to not only explore the popular visual culture but gradually started to transform it into something familiar only to him. He turned a photographic image of models wearing Playboy bunny costumes into an optical illusion composed of many colorful dots. Some of these dots were blurred or overlapped each other, creating an impression of a poorly printed street poster. Polke used tones that corresponded to those used in the commercial printing process yet nonetheless reproduced the image with acrylic paint and brush. His mechanical repetition of dots left the image recognizable but blurry and worn out, as repetitive pop cultural symbols gradually lost their value.

3. Potato House, 1967

Sigmar Polke rarely worked with sculpture—most of his sculptural works referred to his early experimental periods. In 1967, he created a shelter-like structure from wooden grids. Each block of the grid had a raw potato fixed on it. Some critics saw it as a mockery of the contemporary Minimalist movement, which frequently relied on grids and see-through structures.

Potatoes were the most common food in Germany at the time when post-war scarcity and restrictions were still in place. The existence of Polke’s potato structure had two possible outcomes: either it would sprout and continue its life cycle in a new form, reinforcing and covering the grid structure, or it would succumb to the atmosphere and start rotting. Many art experts compare Potato House to a later work of the Swiss conceptual artist Urs Fischer, who built a small village out of bread. Fischer’s work, however, suggested gradual decay as the only possible option.

4. Telepathic Session II (William Blake – Sigmar Polke), 1968

Apart from experimenting with mediums, in the 1960s and 1970s, Polke developed the same approach to substances, taking various drugs and often creating under the influence. Drug-induced states were part of his spiritual and occult explorations. Telepathy was one of the concepts that occupied his mind.

In 1968, Sigmar Polke created a series of works that allegedly represented instruments for telepathic sessions with famous artists of the past. The works consisted of two panels with grids and plugs, which were essentially hybrids of Ouija boards used in spiritual seances and early computers. One such figure Sigmar Polke wanted to connect to was William Blake, legendary English poet, artist, and author of prophetic books. Another similar work supposedly established contact with Max Klinger, a famous Symbolist and Art Nouveau artist. Despite creating cutting-edge contemporary art with materials and techniques unseen before, Polke always highlighted the importance of knowing and remembering one’s roots, both to honor them and to learn from past mistakes.

5. Dr. Bonn, 1978

Despite the mystical undertones of his work, Sigmar Polke was never an escapist and always a politically active artist who reacted to the events around him. In 1972, the West German authorities arrested members of the Red Army Faction, a militant left-wing group that organized terrorist attacks on US military bases in Germany. Five years later, the key members of the group, including its leaders Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Ulrike Meinhof, were found dead in their cells. The officials hastily explained the events as collective suicide, yet many facts did not add up. A few months later, Polke created a painting that resembled a newspaper cartoon. In it, a faceless German bureaucrat named Dr. Bonn (Bonn was established as the capital of West Germany after the war) is trying to shoot himself with a slingshot under the watchful eyes of Baader and Raspe.

6. Watchtower, 1984

Sigmar Polke had little reservations when discussing the difficult and traumatizing legacy of German history and the responsibility of previous generations for the events of World War II and the Holocaust. If anything, his imagery was sometimes too raw and shocking. He painted swarms of swastikas in bright gouache colors, reconstructed concentration camp gates, and locked his paintings behind them.

His 1984 series Watchtower relied on an identical stenciled image of a structure adjacent to concentration camp walls. Sigmar Polke managed to imitate the haunting effect of a moving light searching for those trying to escape: the tower is only visible from certain vantage points, where paint reflects the gallery room light. He printed the image, adding silver oxide in the ink. The final result was both captivating and deeply unsettling. The flickering tower provoked anxiety and terror, as if the viewers were about to be discovered by whoever was guarding the tower.

7. The Spirits That Lend Strength Are Invisible III (Nickel/Neusilber)

Manipulation with chemical elements occupied Sigmar Polke’s mind for quite a long time. The state of transformation, both mental and physical, immediate and prolonged, was present in many of his works, yet this fully manifested itself in his alchemical experiments. His art was supposed to change with the world around it instead of passively waiting to become obsolete. Polke traveled the world to find pigments and natural materials he could use in his works. He went to Pakistan and Afghanistan and learned the techniques Indigenous Americans used in their art.

The Spirits That Lend Strength Are Invisible was a series of paintings inspired by Polke’s trip to North America. The title came from Native American sources that the artist carefully studied. For his work, he used minerals that were present only in North America and were significant for the Indigenous population, such as meteorite powder. He then used crushed minerals to color clear resin and poured it over the canvas. Into still-wet resin, he incorporated Neolithic-era tools made by the ancestors of Indigenous Americans and bits of silver leaf.

8. Athanor: Sigmar Polke’s Work That Shook the Venice Biennale

Sigmar Polke’s alchemical approach to art made his works transcend the boundaries of conventional painting and turned them into responsive and active substances. He launched chemical reactions on canvases that transformed his works over time, with their appearance changing radically over the course of days and years. This approach makes Polke’s work incredibly different for museum conservation and restoration departments. It is still debatable whether they should halt these reactions to stop works from deteriorating or leave them as they are and embrace Sigmar Polke’s artistic vision.

The most famous manifestation of his artistic principles happened in 1986 during the Venice Biennale. Polke occupied the entire West German pavilion with the work called Athanor, or the alchemist’s kiln. Inside the pavilion, he placed a real meteorite and rock crystals and painted the walls with abstract images. However, his main point was not in the paintings themselves, but in their compositions. He used pigments such as cobalt chloride, that reacted to the weather, humidity, temperature, and light conditions around them. Amazed visitors watched Polke’s art transforming and reacting to their presence, as more and more human bodies filled the pavilion.

Museums play a vital role in preserving history and educating the public about people, places, animals, art, and artifacts from all around the world. While there are museums in just about every major city across the globe, some are vast institutions that you could spend days wandering through, poring over the depth and diversity of their collections. Join us as we explore the world’s largest museums based on factors such as footprint, collection, and visitor numbers.

You can also explore our lists of must-visit History and Art museums, or find out which are the most visited museums in the world.

1. The Louvre Is the Largest Museum in the World

Of all the museums in the world, the Louvre in Paris is the largest by gallery space, covering more than 780,000 square feet, while the full complex is 2.3 million square feet. The museum was once a medieval fortress and the home to French kings before being converted into a vast Parisian Museum. It was opened to the public during the French Revolution in 1793 with just 537 paintings, many of which had been confiscated from the royal family and church during the Revolution.

In the 1980s, President François Mitterrand launched the “Grand Louvre” renovation project and commissioned Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei to design a new central entrance. Unveiled in 1989, the striking modern Glass Pyramid stirred significant public debate before becoming an internationally recognized architectural landmark.

The Louvre is home to some of the most important art and artifacts in the history of human civilization, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, The Winged Victory of Samothrace, Théodore Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, and Eugène Delacroix’s iconic masterpiece Liberty Leading the People. Because of its incredible scale, you could literally spend days wandering through the Louvre, which is why so many people come back again and again to take in more.

2. The Smithsonian Institution Is the Largest Museum Complex

The Smithsonian Institution is the largest complex of museums in the world, with 21 different galleries and museums spread across the United States, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of African Art, and the National Air and Space Museum. Together they hold more than 155 million items and specimens, less than 1% of which are on display.

The Smithsonian also runs a large zoological park, containing a long A to Z of animals from the tiniest insects to the largest mammals. And, alongside these sites, there are eight different research stations where diverse fields are explored, including marine biology, astrophysics, environmental research, and American art.

The collections include many icons of American history, including the Star-Spangled Banner (the actual flag that inspired the national flag), the Apollo 11 Command Module, Dorothy’s ruby slipper from The Wizard of Oz, and the legendary Hope Diamond. It also has the only Leonardo da Vinci painting on public display in the Americas, Ginevra de’ Benci.

3. Russia’s State Hermitage Museum Has the Largest Collection of Paintings 

While other museums have achieved record-breaking scale and floor space, the State Hermitage Museum in Russia currently houses the largest collection of any single museum in the entire world. They own more than three million artifacts that date from the Stone Age to the early 20th century.

Once the home of Russian Tsars, this impressive stretch of six buildings running along the river Neva was converted into a court museum in 1764 by Catherine the Great to house her impressive collection of paintings. One of the museum’s star attractions is its Gold Rooms, showcasing priceless gold masterpieces from Eurasia, the Orient, and the Black Sea Littoral. They also own masterpieces by Western artists, including Rubens, Titian, Goya, Picasso, and Van Gogh. It is estimated that if you looked at everything for just one minute, it would take 11 years to see the full collection.

Since the 18th century, the museum has maintained an official resident population of around 50 to 70 cats to guard the vaults and galleries against rodents. Empress Elizabeth ordered the first cats from Kazan in 1745, and today they even have their own press secretary, medical staff, and annual celebration day.

4. The National Museum of China Is the Largest Single-Building Museum 

The National Museum of China, located on the eastern side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, holds the record as the largest single museum building in the world. Formed in 2003 through the merger of the Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, it now stands as one of the most important cultural institutions in Asia.

Inside its 48 exhibition halls, visitors can explore more than 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, from Neolithic jade carvings to Qing dynasty relics. The halls are structured around a central forum 260 meters long. There is also a subterranean level that houses the primary permanent collection, showcasing 5,000 years of dynastic relics, including the famous Shang bronzes and Han dynasty jade suits.

Upper gallery floors feature themed galleries dedicated to subjects such as calligraphy, classical furniture, and diplomatic gifts. With its sheer scale and unrivaled collection of Chinese cultural treasures, the museum continues to draw millions of visitors each year.

5. The Grand Egyptian Museum Is the Largest Museum for a Single Civilization

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza is the largest museum in the world devoted to a single civilization. Situated just two kilometers from the Giza Pyramid Complex, the GEM represents a monumental investment in preserving Egypt’s heritage. Construction began in 2005 and was completed in 2023 for $1 billion, with the museum’s grand opening in November 2025.

The museum displays the complete collection of Tutankhamun’s treasures for the first time, alongside colossal statues and artifacts spanning Egypt’s 5,000-year history. Other highlights include the 110-ton pink granite obelisk of Ramesses II, mounted on an elevated pedestal at the entrance, and a colossal 11-meter-tall statue of Ramesses II in the Grand Hall. There is also Khufu’s solar boat, originally buried next to his pyramid to carry him into the afterlife. The Grand Staircase is lined with 60 colossal statues, sarcophagi, and architectural elements from pharaonic history.

The GEM is designed not only as an exhibition space but also as a major research and conservation center, redefining how the world engages with ancient Egyptian culture.

6. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Is the Largest Museum in the Americas 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest museum in the Americas. While its gallery space is smaller than the Louvre, at 630,000 square feet, the Met’s total floor area stretches to an extraordinary 2.2 million square feet, making it the most expansive museum in the Western Hemisphere.

Opened in 1870, the Metropolitan Museum’s aim was “to bring art and art education to the American people.” Since this time, it has more than fulfilled its role, housing an impressive array of around 50,000 different objects spanning more than 5,000 years of human history. These range from the columns of ancient Greek temples to indigenous African wood carvings, along with Canova’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa, 1804-6, and John Singer Sargent’s infamous Madame X, 1883-84.

For fashion lovers, the museum houses the Anna Wintour Costume Institute, which holds over 33,000 historic and modern garments. The annual Met Gala, held on the first Monday in May, serves as the primary fundraiser for the department and is one of the fashion world’s most high-profile red carpet events.

7. The Vatican Museums Display Centuries of Papal Collecting

The Vatican Museums in Vatican City are an extraordinary public art complex displaying treasures assembled by the Roman Catholic Church and successive popes over more than 500 years. If you follow the official visitor route through the various interconnected corridors, wings, and courtyards, you will cover a distance of around seven kilometers, or over four miles. The interior exhibition space covers over 43,000 m² (460,000 sq ft) across 54 distinct galleries and 1,400 individual rooms and chapels.

There are several distinct museums within the complex, including the Pio-Clementino Museum of classical Greek and Roman sculpture, where you can see Laocoön and His Sons; the Gregorian Egyptian and Etruscan Museum; the Raphael Rooms, which are four monumental papal suites painted by the Renaissance master; and the Sistine Chapel, famously decorated by Michelangelo. There is also the Vatican Historical Museum and Carriage Pavilion, with historic papal carriages and cars.

The collection ranges from ancient Egyptian sarcophagi and classical Greco-Roman statuary to High Renaissance masterpieces, contemporary religious art, and global ethnographic collections. This makes it a pilgrimage site for art and history lovers alongside the faithful.

8. Tokyo National Museum Houses Imperial Treasures of East Asia

The Tokyo National Museum, located inside Ueno Park in Tokyo, is Japan’s oldest national museum. Established in 1872, it combines an expansive architectural complex with a collection of extraordinary cultural significance. While 120,000 objects might seem modest when compared with some other museums on this list, they cover Japanese history from prehistoric times to the modern era, and there are also artifacts from across the Silk Road. This includes 10% of all designated national treasures in Japan.

It is a multi-building complex in Ueno Park. The Honkan main gallery was built in 1938 and houses prehistoric Japanese pottery, samurai armor, ukiyo-e prints, and Buddhist sculpture. The Toyokan is a five-floor gallery dedicated to Asian art. The Heiseikan delivers archaeology collections and special exhibitions. The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures is a modern gallery showing religious artifacts donated by the ancient Hōryū-ji temple in Nara.

Collection highlights include the Prehistoric Dogū & Haniwa, intricate terracotta figurines from the prehistoric period, samurai swords and armor, woodblock prints by old masters, and gilt bronze Buddhist statues.

9. Museo Nacional de Antropología Celebrates Indigenous Mexico

The Museo Nacional de Antropología (National Museum of Anthropology) in Mexico City is Mexico’s most visited museum and widely regarded as one of the most important anthropology and archaeology museums in the world. Located within Chapultepec Park, it houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of pre-Columbian Mexican art and heritage.

The museum complex is enormous, covering around 915,000 square feet, including 23 permanent exhibition halls connected by a vast central courtyard. Many halls open directly into outdoor gardens containing reconstructed ancient monuments and ruins.

The museum holds more than 600,000 artifacts, including treasures such as an Aztec Sun Stone used for cosmology and to measure calendar cycles; Olmec colossal heads; the reconstructed tomb of the Maya ruler Pakal the Great; and a replica of Moctezuma’s elaborate feather crown (the original Penacho is housed at the Weltmuseum Wien in Austria)

10. British Museum Holds Eight Million Objects of Global Cultural Heritage

The British Museum in London is the world’s first national public museum, established in 1753 and opened to the public in 1759. Dedicated to human history, art, and culture, it chronicles the story of human civilization from its earliest beginnings to the modern day. Initially holding just 71,000 objects, it expanded quickly, so much so that collections had to break away to form independent institutions, including the Natural History Museum (1881) and the British Library (1973). Today it has over eight million objects and almost one million square feet of display space.

Collection highlights include the Rosetta Stone, a stele carved with Hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Ancient Greek text, unlocking the translation of Egyptian Hieroglyphics. There are also the controversial Elgin Marbles, taken from the Parthenon in Athens. There is the treasure of the Sutton Hoo ship burial.

The museum also holds extensive collections covering Egypt and the Sudan; Greece and Rome; the Middle East; Britain and Europe; Asia; Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; Prints and Drawings; and Coins and Medals. Only about 1% of the collection is on public display.

No 20th-century anthology of literature would be complete without Franz Kafka (1883–1924). Whether it’s a man who wakes up transformed into an insect or a clerk fighting against bureaucracy over an unknown crime, few readers are left unmoved by the writer’s surrealism. In order to get the full picture of the man and his works, here are 15 facts about the German-language writer that may seem unusual at first, but in reality, they are quintessentially Kafkaesque.

1. Kafka Wrote in German, Although He Was a Jew From Prague

Kafka was born into a Jewish middle-class family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the writer’s mother tongue was actually German, even though he could hold a conversation in Czech and later in Yiddish.

Nearly all of his works, except for a few personal letters, were in German, so Kafka ranks among the greatest German-language authors, even though he hailed from a different ethnic and regional background. Literary critics have noted that his German possessed a “platonic purity,” devoid of slang and contemporary colloquialisms, reflecting Kafka’s upbringing away from German-speaking centers, such as Vienna and Berlin.

2. He Was Actually a Doctor of Law

Kafka attended one of the oldest universities in the world, Charles University in Prague, between 1901 and 1906. He initially enrolled in chemistry, only to transfer to law school after two weeks, but his indecisiveness did not end there.

During the second semester, he also enrolled in German studies, as he desired more lessons in art history and philosophy. At the time, Kafka knew he wanted to be a writer, but he was also aware he needed a Brotberuf, a job that would pay the bills. During his law studies, Kafka befriended Max Brod, who would later become essential for the publication and promotion of Kafka’s work.

3. Prague Turned Kafka Into a Tourist Attraction, Which Is a Bit Ironic

Kafka was not attached to Prague as Immanuel Kant was to his native Königsberg. Nevertheless, he never permanently moved out of the city on the Vltava River. That is why it is easy to associate Kafka’s image with the Czech capital, but the city itself did not dutifully honor its famous resident for much of the 20th century.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Kafka’s legacy became more prominent in the streets of the city. A society that bears his name was founded in 1990, and the writer got a museum a decade and a half later. However, more touristy sights, such as the Head of Franz Kafka, David Černý’s outdoor kinetic sculpture, have turned the writer into a brand, which does not really align with Kafka’s existential themes.

4. Allegedly, Kafka Had a Porn Stash

In his contemporary study, Excavating Kafka (2008), James Hawes argued that Kafka subscribed to pornography and had quite a stash of hard porn. Naturally, literary critics lashed out at this claim, but it remains a fact that the writer’s relationship towards the opposite sex was anything but ordinary. He never married and visited brothels during adulthood.

Brod spoke of his friend’s “sexual desire,” which some critics linked directly to his work. Since Kafka’s characters are steeped in guilt, often for no apparent reason from the reader’s standpoint, the source of this guilt could very well lie in the writer’s furtive obsession with pornography.

5. Kafka Flirted With Socialism

Kafka’s opus does not come across as overtly political, but the writer himself did express a political stance, at least in his early youth. His classmate, Hugo Bergmann, distantly remembers Kafka wearing a red carnation in support of socialism. This aligns with the fact that before World War I, the writer attended the meetings of a Czech anarchist youth club (Klub mladých).

However, this somewhat leftist orientation is quite ironic when we take into account how Kafka was posthumously treated as a writer in communist Czechoslovakia. When his works were not outright banned, they were ignored by the authorities, which, ironically, made Kafka popular in the West, which lauded him as an anti-totalitarian writer.

6. Kafka Considered Moving to Mandatory Palestine in the Early 1920s

Near the end of his life, in late 1923, Kafka moved to Berlin with the last woman in his life, Dora Diamant. The German capital was meant to be a stepping stone to a permanent move to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine, but tuberculosis cut the writer’s life short just a year later.

The reasons for the move were more symbolic than practical; anti-Semitism was on the rise in Europe at the time, but Kafka really sought a simpler life with his emotional partner. The writer wanted to reconnect with his Jewish roots in a place far away from the formal practice of Judaism he was accustomed to.

7. Kafka Passed Away From Starvation at 40 Years Old

Kafka had known about his tuberculosis since 1917, but the sickness took a turn for the worse in March of 1924, when he was diagnosed with laryngeal tuberculosis. He went to a sanatorium just north of Vienna, but sadly, he passed away there in June of the same year.

Kafka’s actual cause of death was starvation, because his disease made it too painful for him to eat. Unfortunately for the writer, parenteral nutrition became a thing only after World War II. One final twist of fate was the short story Kafka was editing on his deathbed, which was published posthumously. It was morbidly, yet fittingly entitled: A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler).

8. Kafka Burned Most of His Works

The period Kafka spent in Berlin with Dora Diamant was not particularly prolific: she actually helped him burn his works. Critics usually put the estimate at 90% of all of Kafka’s works that ended up in flames. Furthermore, the writer never actually finished any of his major novels.

That’s why it does not come as a surprise that Kafka requested from his friend and editor, Max Brod, that all of his works “be burned unread” after the writer’s death. In one of literature’s most famous acts of defiance, Brod not only refused to burn Kafka’s manuscripts, but he also reconstructed many of them and famously published them.

9. Kafka Was Not Famous During His Lifetime

Although he is considered one of the greatest authors of the 20th century, Kafka was largely anonymous in his day and age. His fame was restricted to narrow literary circles and almost exclusively to German-speaking readers and critics.

For example, his first major translations into English did not appear until the 1930s, after the writer’s death. Kafka’s global popularity really took off after World War II, after Brod finished publishing the bulk of his friend’s writing. His motifs, such as alienation, absurdity, authoritarian regimes, and unresponsive bureaucracy, resonated with post-war audiences and remain topical to this day. Expectedly, Kafka is a writer popular with Gen Z, who are pragmatic yet highly anxious.

10. There Was a Real-Life Trial Over Kafka’s Unpublished Papers

One of Kafka’s greatest novels, The Trial (Der Prozess), became surreally real in the late 2000s. After Brod passed away in 1968, his secretary (Esther Hoffe) came into possession of thousands of Kafka’s unpublished papers. They were eventually passed down to her daughters, who refused to hand them over to the National Library of Israel, which initiated a legal process in 2008.

The sisters argued that the collection was a gift to their mother, but the Tel Aviv court ruled in 2012 that Kafka’s writings needed to be handed over for archiving. The country’s Supreme Court upheld the decision in 2016, ending the eight-year-long legal process, which was quintessentially Kafkaesque.

11. There Is an Adjective Derived From the Writer’s Surname

One of the greatest testaments to the literary grandeur of Franz Kafka is the adjective derived from his last name: Kafkaesque. Admittedly, the word has the primary meaning of simply referring to the author or his writings, but it can equally be used to denote “a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality.”

These epithets stem from Kafka’s works, such as a person waking up transformed into an oversized insect or a protagonist caught up in endless bureaucracy over an unnamed crime. In literary theory, these elements create a Kafkaesque atmosphere in which characters feel as if they are in a nightmare, facing absurd and illogical circumstances that leave them feeling trapped and helpless.

12. Orson Welles Thought of The Trial as His Greatest Movie

The American filmmaker Orson Welles is arguably best known for the panic he caused in 1938 while reading an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds over the radio. The fact that he had convinced the listeners that a Martian invasion was real just confirmed his talent, which, perhaps, reached its peak in the 1941 drama Citizen Kane.

However, in his own words, The Trial is the best movie Welles had ever made. This was a 1962 adaptation of Kafka’s eponymous novel that largely stayed faithful to the original plot and, to a great extent, managed to bring to life the Kafkaesque atmosphere that had previously existed only in literature.

13. Gregor Samsa Did Not Turn Into a Cockroach

The opening sentence of Kafka’s 1915 novella, The Metamorphosis, is definitely one of the most popular and striking sentences in the history of world literature: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”

Since 1933, the English version has had a couple of dozen translations, and, famously, they have not been consistent on what the protagonist had transformed into. The German original, ungeheuren Ungeziefer, is ambiguous itself, so translators got creative, labeling the fictional animal as a bug, vermin, insect, and, famously, a cockroach. Perhaps the latter stuck in the reader’s heads the most because it vividly encompassed the ridiculousness of Gregor’s transformation.

14. Kafka Was Actually a Fun Guy

Although Kafka’s literary motifs were somber, the writer himself did not possess a dark personality. His acquaintances often described him as a person with a dry sense of humor. Brod, for instance, remembered how Kafka laughed out loud after reading the first chapter of The Trial, an existential work that is anything but overtly humorous.

That’s why some critics regard Kafka’s surrealism, at times absurd, as ironic, in the sense that the plot can be so ridiculous that it turns into satire. Kafka did not have an easy life, having to constantly balance between his day job, writing, and love life, which did not leave much room for humor.

15. Kafka Died Before World War II, yet He Is Associated With It

Kafka passed away nine years before the Nazis came to power in Germany, but his work has inevitably become related to World War II, although it was in no manner directly related to it. As mentioned earlier, Kafka’s popularity rose in the aftermath of the global conflict, as existentialism and alienation plagued post-Holocaust Europe.

Although the writer did not personally experience these horrors, all three of his sisters were deported to concentration camps, where they lost their lives. Furthermore, Max Brod had to flee with Kafka’s unpublished manuscripts to Palestine at the beginning of the war, but the Gestapo still got hold of some of Kafka’s letters. It is somewhat ironic that Kafka’s literary legacy was defined by historical events that came after the writer’s death.

For a long while, works by women artists were mostly excluded from the art market. Today, due to both a shift in attitude and a growing need for new names and voices, women artists have finally begun to gain recognition, enriching the art historical canon in the process. Take a look at the 10 most expensive artworks created by women artists.

10. “Miss January”: Priciest Artwork by a Living Woman Artist

Record price: $13.63 million

The most expensive work ever sold by a living woman artist is a painting by a South African artist Marlene Dumas titled Miss January. Dumas is known for her exploration of post-segregation South African identity and social taboos. Miss January is a ten-feet-tall work that is a reinvention of Miss World, painted by Dumas at just age 10. The record-breaking work subverted the expectations and norms of female nudity and beauty.

9. “The Eye is the First Circle” by Lee Krasner

Record price: $11.6 million

Lee Krasner was one of the most famous women of Abstract Expressionism, often underrated in comparison with her male counterparts. Krasner spent years caring for her husband, Jackson Pollock, helping him battle his alcohol addiction. To make room for Pollock’s workshop, she resorted to creating art in her small bedroom, which resulted in an enormous quantity of small and even tiny painted works. She also experimented with mosaics, creating tables and panels with abstract patterns.

In 2019, her painting The Eye is the First Circle was sold for $11.6 million. The work represented the period in Krasner’s art when she returned to large-scale works. Despite working in her own distinctive style, she still clearly remained in an imaginary dialogue with Jackson Pollock, who died four years earlier.

8. “Propped” by Jenny Saville

Record price: $12.4 million

Jenny Saville is an English painter renowned for her unconventional portrayal of nude female bodies that defy traditional beauty standards. The bodies she paints have hair, extra weight, bruises, stretch marks, and other signs of living a life that does not fit into the conventional artistic norm. Her painting Propped, which depicts a nude woman with her legs crossed, launched Saville’s career and broke the sales record in 2018, selling for $12.4 million.

7. “Grey Stone II” by Agnes Martin

Record price: $18.7

Despite her enormous influence, Agnes Martin remains a mysterious figure in art history. Her work is not always appreciated by average art lovers, yet it is loved by collectors. Her works are difficult to appreciate through catalog illustrations or photographs and require a close, in-person inspection. Behind the seemingly simple and flat surfaces hides the technical and mathematical effort. Her record-breaking painting, Grey Stone II, represents a monochrome grid created with oil paint and a graphite pencil, inviting the viewer to contemplate and focus.

Martin was mostly known for her refined minimalist abstractions. Despite being associated with Abstract Expressionists, her works tend to rely on a subdued and limited color palette, atypical for the movement.

6. “Portrait of Marjorie Ferry” by Tamara de Lempicka

Record price: $21.2 million

The Art Deco legend Tamara de Lempicka transformed from an impoverished immigrant from the Russian Empire, torn by civil war and revolution, into one of the most commercially successful artists of her time. Lempicka worked on society portraits and sensual nudes, creating a world where a woman could be in control of her life, beauty, and sexuality. Lempicka is a favorite of many famous art collectors, including Madonna and Jack Nicholson, who each own a collection of her paintings.

In 2020, Lempicka’s Portrait of Marjorie Ferry, a painting depicting a Parisian nightclub singer, was sold for $21 million. It was commissioned by the model’s husband as a wedding gift to pair with a massive, gleaming ring that was also featured in the work. The portrait was one of the final large-scale paintings created by Lempicka, as she transitioned towards less grandiose works after the outbreak of World War II.

5. “Les Distractions de Dagobert” by Leonora Carrington

Record price: $28.5 million

Leonora Carrington was one of the most original and complex Surrealist painters, who began to gain recognition in global art history in her later years. The importance of Leonora Carrington to the art market was further underscored by the 2022 Venice Biennale, which centered on the exhibition The Milk of Dreams which showcased the artist’s paintings and illustrations. In 2024, her work Les Distractions de Dagobert was sold for $28.5 million. Curiously, thirty years ago, the same painting was sold for just $475,500.

The new owner of the work was identified as Eduardo F. Constantini, an Argentinian businessman and the founder of the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires. Curiously, thirty years earlier, Constantini also wanted to purchase the work, but lost the bid to another buyer. Despite being born in the UK, Leonora Carrington is considered a Latin American artist, as she spent most of her life in Mexico. Just like her friend Remedios Varo, Carrington escaped war-torn Europe and found her new permanent home in Mexico. Her European family members, who broke off all contact with the artist, were unaware of Carrington’s successful artistic career overseas.

4. “Untitled” by Joan Mitchell

Record price: $29.1 million

Another famous Abstract Expressionist, Joan Mitchell, was one of the rare women of the movement who managed to gain recognition and break records with the prices for their works. Unlike her other colleagues, she never presented Abstract Expressionism as a distinctly American form of art, instead situating it within the broader tradition of Western art. In November 2023, her painting Untitled was sold for $29.1 million. That painting marked a transition in Mitchell’s career from bright colors to more somber tones.

According to some researchers, Joan Mitchell had synesthesia, a rare neurological condition also attributed to Wassily Kandinsky. A synesthetic brain mixes up signals, activating senses unrelated to the actual visual or sensual stimuli. For instance, Mitchell could literally hear colors as sounds: when exposed to color, her brain activated the area responsible for sound reception.

3. “Spider” by Louise Bourgeois

Record price: $32 million

The famous French artist Louise Bourgeois avoided joining any form of art group or movement. She created in solitude, transforming her fears and childhood traumas into a universe of deeply symbolic and complex works of art. She was also known for ruthlessly destroying her works that she deemed not good enough. In May 2023, the iconic bronze sculpture by Bourgeois titled Spider was sold for a shocking price of $32 million. Despite the unpleasant connotations for many, in Bourgeois’s art, a spider is a heartwarming symbol associated with her mother, who was a weaver.

2. “Diego and I” by Frida Kahlo

Record price: $34.9 million

The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is arguably one of the most famous women artists of all time. Her Surrealist paintings, especially self-portraits that relate to her complex and often troubled personal life, are among the most wanted items at art auctions. The record was set in 2021, when her self-portrait titled Diego and I was sold for $34.9 million to the Latin American Art collection of Eduardo F. Constantini.

Diego and I is a work that demonstrates the depth and complexity of Kahlo’s relationship with her husband Diego Rivera. Rivera was an outstanding artist but an abusive and self-centered partner. Frida painted herself with a miniature portrait of Rivera on her forehead, illustrating both the artistic influence of and emotional dependency on her husband.

1. “Jimson Weed”: The Priciest Painting by a Woman Artist

Record price: $44.4 million

The most expensive painting ever sold by a woman artist belonged to the famous modernist Georgia O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe, who was mostly known for her landscapes and semi-abstract flower paintings, was one of the most influential figures of her generation. In 2014, her Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 was sold for a shocking $44.4 million, despite an estimated value of $15 million. The painting was sold to an unidentified buyer, with the proceeds intended for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum acquisition fund.

However, despite the substantial price tag, the record beaten by Georgia O’Keeffe is noticeably far from the overall top of the most expensive artworks sold. The list of record-breaking works is filled with names of great male artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, whose highly disputed Salvator Mundi painting is likely to have been actually painted by one of his followers. Other notable artists include Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock, who perfectly fit the stereotype of a troubled genius. Due to the long-standing institutional and social bias against women artists, their works remain undervalued by both museums and private collectors.

Inspired by Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Roman poet Virgil composed his own epic poem between about 30 and 19 BC, when Augustus ruled as the first Roman Emperor. Left unfinished at the poet’s death, the Aeneid follows the Trojan prince Aeneas as he flees from the ruins of Troy and sails toward his promised new homeland: present-day Italy. In the Aeneid, Virgil included mythical locations, but also used many real places that his Roman readers would have recognized. Most of them still exist today. Here are 12 stops on Aeneas’ route, in order, from Troy to Lavinium, Italy.

1. Troy, Hisarlik, Türkiye

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“I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy, exiled by fate, came to Italy and the Lavinian shores.” Aeneid, Book I

Virgil’s epic poem begins with the fall of Troy. After a ten-year war, the Greeks, thanks to Odysseus’ cunning trick of the Trojan Horse, have entered the city. As everything around him is in flames, the Trojan prince Aeneas, carrying his father Anchises on his back and holding his young son Ascanius’ hand, flees from his motherland. He will never return.

Today, the city of Hisarlik, in present-day northwestern Türkiye, is widely believed to be the location of Troy. After the first excavations headed by Heinrich Schliemann in the 19th century, subsequent digging campaigns have uncovered at least nine layers of cities built one on top of another.

The layer of Troy commonly identified as the city mentioned by Virgil and Homer is Troy VIIa, dating to the Bronze Age. It was demolished by a fire around 1180 BC. Subsequently rebuilt, the city was again destroyed in the 7th century BC.

2. Thrace, Southeastern Balkans

“There I was building a city—my people were eager—and I called the place Aeneadae, from my own name,” Aeneid, Book III

After fleeing from the burning Troy, Aeneas and the other Trojan exiles reach Thrace (an area comprising present-day Bulgaria and parts of Romania, Greece, and Turkey), where they start building a city: Aeneadae.

While Aeneas hopes to have found a place to settle, an eerie event changes his mind. As he tries to uproot a tree from a burial mound, the ground and bark start to bleed. The tree then speaks to him with the voice of Polydorus, Priam’s youngest son.

During the Trojan War, King Priam sent the young prince to the allied Thrace for safety. After Troy’s defeat, however, the Thracians sided with the victorious Greeks and killed Polydorus. Now, the murdered prince’s spirit tells Aeneas to leave Thrace.

3. Delos, Cyclades, Greece

“Seek out your ancient mother. There the house of Aeneas shall rule over all regions, as shall his sons,” Aeneid, Book III

After re-burying Polydorus, Aeneas sets sail again and lands on the sacred island of Delos in the Aegean Sea. In ancient Greece, Delos was an economic and religious hub, and, according to myth, the birthplace of the gods Apollo and Artemis.

On Delos, Aeneas receives a prophecy from the oracle of Apollo: he must seek his “ancient mother,” the land from which his ancestors came.

Today, Delos is a largely uninhabited archaeological site, where visitors can admire the Temple of Apollo and the Terrace of the Lions. The granite island, about 1.3 square miles in area, is one of the smallest of the Cyclades. The island group forms a rough circle around Delos, hence the name Cyclades, “encircling islands.”

4. Crete, Greece

“There is a place, Crete, the island of great Jupiter, lying amid the sea, where Mount Ida is, the cradle of our race,” Aeneid, Book III

Upon receiving Apollo’s prophecy, Aeneas sets sail to Crete, mistakenly identifying it as the ancestral homeland mentioned by the god. Dominated by mountains (Mount Ida, its highest point, is more than 8,000 feet tall), Crete is the fifth-largest island of the Mediterranean Sea and was home to the Minoan civilization, a Bronze Age culture.

When the Trojans reach their new destination, they begin to build a settlement. However, once again, misfortune strikes. A plague strikes and crops fail. Then, the gods appear to Aeneas in a dream to inform him of his mistake: the “ancient mother” of the prophecy is not Crete but Italy, the homeland of his ancestor Dardanus.

5. The Strophades, Ionian Sea, Greece

“Suddenly, with a horrible swoop, the Harpies are upon us from the mountains, shaking their wings with a loud clatter.” Aeneid, Book III

After leaving Crete, black storm clouds hinder the Trojan refugees’ voyage. In search of food, they land on the Strophades, two tiny islands in the Ionian Sea, west of the Peloponnese. There, Aeneas and his crew held a feast after killing several cows and goats roaming free on the island.

Their meal, however, is soon spoiled by the arrival of unwanted and unpleasant guests: the Harpies, winged, bird-like creatures with women’s faces, and the local residents. Furious, their leader, Celaeno, curses the Trojans, delivering a rather grim prophecy: they will reach their destined land, but they will be so hungry that they will “eat their own tables.”

The real Strophades are remote, largely uninhabited islands. In the 13th century, the emperor of Nicaea, Theodore I Laskaris, built a fortress-like monastery there.

6. Buthrotum, Butrint, Albania

“Could it be that a second Pergamum has risen here, built by some Hector’s hand?” Aeneid, Book III

On the next stop on his long journey, Aeneas finds some familiar faces. Indeed, a group of fellow Trojans has already settled in Buthrotum, present-day Butrint, under the leadership of Helenus, one of Priam’s sons. After being captured by Pyrrhus, Helenus and his wife, Andromache, managed to gain their freedom and succeed to a portion of Pyrrhus’s kingdom after his death.

Before his departure, Helenus and Andromache advise Aeneas to take the long way around Sicily to sail past the Strait of Messina, where Scylla (a multi-headed monster) and Charybdis (a deadly whirlpool) lurk. Part of Odysseus’s crew, on its way home, had already fallen victim to the hazardous passage.

Today, Butrint is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Layered with Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Venetian ruins, the city is wrapped in forest and overlooks a lagoon.

7. Sicily, Italy

“A port there is, untouched by winds’ approach; but nearby Etna thunders with appalling crashes, and sometimes hurls a dark cloud to the sky,” Aeneid, Book III

Following Helenus’ advice, Aeneas lands safely in Sicily near Mount Etna. As the tired Trojans are resting on a beach, they encounter a ragged Greek soldier named Achaemendes. He landed on the island before them as part of Odysseus’s crew, but was left behind when the others managed to flee from the Cyclops Polyphemus.

As he finished telling his misfortunes to the Trojans, Polyphemus, blinded by Odysseus, stumbled down the shore. Achaemendes and the Trojan run to safety as the other Cyclopes follow Polyphemus to the beach. They will make a second stop in Sicily after leaving Carthage (more on that later). Here, they hold a series of games to commemorate the anniversary of Anchises’ death.

Today, Mount Etna is still Europe’s most active volcano, and the Strait of Messina, though thankfully free of the mythical Scylla and Charybdis, has strong currents. As for the island of Sicily, its position as a crossroads of Mediterranean civilizations (Greek, Phoenician, Roman, Arab, and Norman) left behind traces of Italy’s long (and fragmented) history.

8. Carthage,  Tunis, Tunisia

“O queen, the grief you bid me to renew is unspeakable… But if you have such longing to know sour disasters, I will begin,” Aeneid, Book II

When Aeneas’ crew sets sail from Sicily, the goddess Juno, who harbors no love for the Trojans, whips up a storm that blows the refugees off course, leading them to the coast of North Africa. There, they reach Carthage, ruled by Queen Dido. According to tradition, the African city was founded by the Phoenicians, probably in 814 BC. In the Aeneid, however, Virgil traces the origin of Carthage to Dido herself, who, according to the Roman poet, founded the settlement after fleeing from her brother Pygmalion, who murdered her husband.

In Carthage, the Trojan prince shares with the queen the tale of the fall of Troy and his subsequent voyage through the Mediterranean Sea. Queen Dido falls in love with Aeneas, even though she vowed never to love again. During a storm caused by Venus (Aeneas’ mother) and Juno, Dido and Aeneas consummate their love.

Their relationship, however, is not destined to last. Indeed, Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his mission: to found a new Troy in Italy. Despite Dido’s plea to remain in Carthage, the Trojan prince leaves, telling her he must obey the gods, even when their plans do not align with his desire. Distraught, Dido builds a pyre and, after cursing Aeneas, takes her own life. The curse foreshadows a future enmity between Rome and Carthage: the Punic Wars.

Today, the ruins of Carthage are an extensive archaeological site belonging to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

9. Cumae, Campania, Italy

“The descent to the Underworld is easy; the door of dark Dis stands open night and day. But to retrace your steps and escape to the upper air—that is the task, that is the toil,” Aeneid, Book VI

Like Odysseus, Aeneas must journey to the underworld before fulfilling his destiny. After finally reaching the Italian shores, the Trojan prince arrives at Cumae, near present-day Naples. There, he consults the Sibyl, a prophetess who lives in a cave carved into the rock. The priestess warns him that he will face more trials in Italy, but agrees to guide him into the underworld to speak with his dead father.

Anchises rests in the Elysian Fields among the souls of the virtuous. During their reunion, he shows his son that from the line of Ascanius a Caesar will come, who will guide Rome into a “Golden Age.” In the Underworld, Aeneas also meets the soul of Dido, who refuses to speak to him.

Today, the “official” Sibyl’s cave (Antro della Sibilla) at Cumae is a long, trapezoidal tunnel cut into volcanic rock, with shafts of light cutting through from its sides. Probably of Etruscan origin, the cave is located near the ruins of the Temple of Apollo and the Acropolis that look out over the Tyrrhenian Sea.

10. The Tiber Mouth, Lazio, Italy

“Here at last, worn out by the seas, by every hazard of land, by long wandering, the Trojans set foot on the shore of Latium,” Aeneid, Book VII

After years of wandering and trials, Aeneas lands on the shores of Latium, the area around the Tiber River in present-day Lazio, central Italy, and sails up the stream. Ravenously hungry, they bake flatbreads (the antecedents of modern pizza) and pile them with fruits. When they finish the toppings, they devour the flatbreads too, prompting Ascanius to joke that they have even eaten their tables. This fulfills the Harpies’ prophecy and confirms to Aeneas that he has finally reached his promised land.

The mouth of the Tiber River is located near present-day Fiumicino, mostly known for its international airport. Just south of the town is the ancient harbor of Ostia Antica, where visitors can walk through some of the best-maintained Roman ruins.

11. Pallanteum, Palatine Hill, Rome

“This forest, this hill with its leafy crown—some god inhabits it, which god we know not… We Romans believe that Jupiter himself we have often seen here,” Aeneid, Book VIII

When Aeneas and the Trojans land at the mouth of the Tiber River, they are welcomed by the king of the region, Latinus. Other local rulers, however, resent their presence and the prospective marriage between Aeneas and Lavinia, Latinus’ daughter. Among the resentful is Turnus, leader of the Rutuli tribe and Lavinia’s suitor.

As war between the Trojans and Turnus is about to break out, the god of the Tiber River tells Aeneas to form an alliance with the Arcadians and their King Evander, a Greek who founded the city of Pallanteum in Italy. During his visit, Evander leads Aeneas through the site of the future city of Rome.

Virgil identifies Pallanteum as the Palatine Hill, one of the settlements that will form Rome and the very site of its mythical birthplace. Indeed, according to Roman legend, the infants Romulus and Remus, abandoned on the Tiber River, were deposited at the foot of the Palatine.

Today, the Palatine Hill is a plateau located near the Roman Forum. It houses mostly ruins dating back to Imperial Rome and offers a sweeping view of the Forum and the Capitoline.

12. Lavinium, Lazio, Italy

“He shall build a city for Lavinia his bride, and shall call it Lavinium. Wars, horrid wars I see, and the Tiber foaming with blood,” Aeneid, Book VI

After defeating King Turnus in single combat, Aeneas marries Lavinia and fulfills his destiny by erecting a new city of the Trojan refugees: Lavinium, named after his wife. It is from Lavinium that his son Ascanius will eventually found Alba Longa.

Located southeast of Rome, near present-day Castel Gandolfo (the town where the popes’ summer residence was built in the 17th century), Alba Longa is, according to legend, the birthplace of the future founders of Rome: Romulus and Remus. Indeed, their mother, Rhea Silvia, was the daughter of Numitor, the King of Alba Longa.

In the 20th century, archaeological excavations on the site where Virgil places Lavinium have revealed 13 altars, Bronze Age artifacts, and a shrine that may have been associated with Aeneas by the Romans. These findings confirm that the area was occupied long before the birth of Rome.

Source

• Virgil. Aeneid.  Trans. H. Rushton Fairclough. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1916 (rev. 1934).

Certain objects throughout history have earned a reputation so dark that even the most rational minds hesitate before dismissing them as nonsense. Ancient curses, after all, were serious business: priests and craftsmen inscribed spine-chilling warnings on tombs and sacred talismans to deter anyone foolish enough to interfere. Whether those warnings retained any power across the millennia is a question these seven artifacts have done their best to answer.

1. The Hope Diamond, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Few objects have inspired as much awe and dread as the Hope Diamond. This 45.52-carat blue diamond, on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, has a documented history that stretches back to 17th-century India, where it was allegedly stolen from a Hindu idol. You can probably already deduce what happened next.

The stone passed through the hands of French King Louis XIV (who reportedly died of gangrene), then Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (both guillotined during the French Revolution), and later a string of European aristocrats who fared not much better. In the 20th century, eccentric American socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean purchased the diamond from Pierre Cartier and wore it frequently and rather flamboyantly. She had the diamond blessed by a priest to cleanse it of its ancient curse, laughing off the concern of essentially every single person in her life.

In totally unrelated news, McLean went on to suffer the untimely deaths of both her son and her daughter, suffered through her husband’s mental breakdown, and her own early death by pneumonia in 1947. Her extensive jewelry heritage was sold off to prominent jeweler Harry Winston, who eventually donated a perhaps-truly-not-so-lucky gem to the Smithsonian in 1958. He mailed it to them in a plain brown paper package. Make of that what you will.

FYI: The Hope Diamond is one of the most visited artifacts in the US. Visit on a weekday morning to stand closest to the display case and witness the stone’s remarkable red phosphorescence under ultraviolet light, a quality unique among blue diamonds.

2. Tutankhamen’s Tomb Objects, Egyptian Museum, Cairo

When Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon broke the seal of Tutankhamen’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, they made one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in history. They also, according to popular legend, made a significant personal error in judgment, and this is the one mysterious curse you’ve probably already heard about.

Apparently, an inscription found in the tomb warned that “death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the king,” although historians debate whether any such inscription actually even existed (now widely believed to have been a bit of media-created fake news).

What is beyond dispute is what followed. Lord Carnarvon died just five months after the opening, from an infected mosquito bite. Not quite swift wings, but close enough. Within a mere decade, around a dozen people connected to the excavation died under circumstances considered more than a little “unusual.” Scientists have proposed plenty of rational explanations, of course, including toxic mold or ancient bacteria inside the sealed tomb. Despite many such theories being tested, none were definitively proven.

3. The Unlucky Mummy (Priestess of Amen-Ra), British Museum, London

Of all the objects in the British Museum’s vast collection, one has generated more ghost stories than any other: the decorated inner coffin lid of a young Egyptian priestess of Amen-Ra, dating to around 950 BC. Worth noting, however: it is not actually a mummy on display; it is just a painted lid. The British Museum insists you know this.

Since arriving in Britain in the 1880s, the object has been linked to the deaths of multiple owners, a photographer who reportedly died shortly after taking its picture, and, most dramatically, the sinking of the Titanic. According to one widely circulated account, the coffin lid was secretly transported on the ship’s maiden voyage. The British Museum has owned the object since 1889 and firmly disputes this, noting it never left the collection during the period in question.

Whether you find that reassuring is entirely up to you.

4. The Delhi Purple Sapphire (Cursed Amethyst), Natural History Museum, London

The stone known as the Delhi Purple Sapphire is not an actual sapphire but rather an amethyst of no particular visual distinction. What distinguishes it is its paperwork.

Reportedly looted from the Temple of Indra in Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the stone moved hands several times over the following decades. And every single time, coincidence or not, it brought misery and ruin to its owner.

When scientist and occultist Edward Heron-Allen had it posthumously donated to the Natural History Museum in London in 1944, he included a handwritten note calling the stone “trebly accursed” and instructing that it be locked away and never worn. For good measure, he wrapped it in seven bags, sealed it with a Solomon’s seal charm, and sent it over. The museum obliged.

The amethyst sits in vault storage and surfaces for public display only occasionally, which is almost certainly how Heron-Allen would have preferred things.

5. The Busby Stoop Chair, Thirsk Museum, Yorkshire, England

Not all cursed artifacts come from ancient civilizations; some are positively more modern. The Busby Stoop Chair, an ordinary-looking 17th-century wooden chair in the Thomas Lord Room at the Thirsk Museum in North Yorkshire, proves that more recent history was perfectly capable of producing its own supernatural baggage.

Thomas Busby was a murderer who was hanged in 1702 near Thirsk, who, according to local legend, declared before his execution that anyone who sat in his favorite chair would die. The chair spent years in the Busby Stoop Inn, where generations of locals dared each other to sit in it. An alarming number of those who did so subsequently died, including Royal Air Force pilots stationed nearby during World War II.

The pub’s owner donated the chair to the Thirsk Museum in 1978, where it was immediately hung on the wall so that nobody could sit in it. A practical solution, and perhaps, quite a wise one, too.

6. The Ring of Silvianus (The Vyne Ring), The Vyne, Hampshire, England

Of all the artifacts on this list, the Ring of Silvianus may have the strongest case for cultural immortality. This 4th-century Roman gold ring, found in a field in Silchester in 1785, is believed by many scholars to have been the possible inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien’s One Ring. That alone earns it a proud place on this list.

The ring’s connection to a curse predates Tolkien by roughly 1,600 years. Discovered nearby was a defixio, a Roman curse tablet, reading (roughly translated): “Senicianus, do not enjoy good health until you bring back the ring to the temple of Nodens.” Tolkien, who had intimate knowledge of the ring’s story, consulted on excavations near Nodens’s temple in 1929 and seems to have put that knowledge to remarkable use.

The ring is now held at The Vyne, a National Trust property in Hampshire. It is smaller and plainer than you might expect, and all the more interesting for it.

Insider tip: The Vyne is a beautiful Tudor mansion well worth visiting in its own right, with the ring displayed inside the house. If you are a Tolkien devotee, pair this with a visit to the Tolkien archive at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, about an hour’s drive north.

7. Ötzi the Iceman’s Belongings, South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, Bolzano, Italy

Ötzi the Iceman is not, strictly speaking, an artifact. He is a 5,300-year-old mummified man found frozen in the Alps in 1991, and the objects recovered with him, including a copper ax, bow and arrows, are extraordinary windows into Copper Age life. They are also, according to a growing body of anecdotes, not entirely safe to be around.

Seven people connected to the discovery or early study of Ötzi have since died in ways described as premature or unusual, including the mountaineer who guided researchers to the body and a forensic examiner. Scientists are quick to note that the sample size is too small to constitute a meaningful pattern, and they are probably right. It is worth noting, though, that Ötzi himself was murdered: shot with an arrow and possibly finished with a blow to the head.

The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano is one of the finest regional museums in Europe. Ötzi’s preserved body is viewable through a small porthole window in a refrigerated cell. Plan at least two hours for a thorough visit, and combine the trip with a walk through Bolzano’s beautiful medieval town center.

The idea of a muse stems from Greek mythology. The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne are the personification of inspiration for art and science. While these muses were actively guiding the creator, today’s interpretation of the term suggests a muse is more of a passive object; a beautiful woman behind the artistic, male genius. Throughout history, many women have been given this title. In art in particular, male artists are often credited with having a muse. While in reality, these women were anything but passive objects in the background.

Camille Claudel: Muse and Artist in the Shadow of Rodin?

Camille Claudel, born in 1864, was the eldest daughter of three children of a provincial middle-class family. A strict but devoted father and a mother mainly occupied with her duties as a housewife shaped her early childhood years. When the family moved to Paris, Camille began to take sculpting classes at the Académie Colarossi.

A year later, in 1882, Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel met when the French sculptor took over the class Claudel was attending from his predecessor and friend Alfred Boucher. At the time, Rodin was already in a lifelong partnership with Rose Beuret, with whom he had a son in 1866, only two years younger than Camille.

However, the large age difference did not prevent the two from starting an affair. Intrigued by the fierce 19-year-old student, Rodin appointed Camille as an assistant in his studio. From then on, their connection intensified quickly. She became his muse, colleague, mistress, collaborator, and assistant.

He was simultaneously her lover and her master, which made her subordinate to him. Not necessarily because Rodin wanted her to be; on the contrary, he had a firm belief in her ability as an artist, but because of the nature of their relationship.

During the first years of their romantic relationship, the artworks of both sculptors seemed to reflect their closeness and initial attraction to each other. Rodin’s influence on Claudel is clearly visible in pieces like The Torso of a Crouching Woman and The Torso of a Standing Woman. Regardless of the fact that Rodin was a much more experienced artist, he was influenced by Claudel’s talent. For example, his Galatea shows a strong resemblance to Claudel’s Young Girl with a Sheaf.

At the beginning of the 1890s, Claudel began to distance herself more and more from Rodin. “I have lots of new ideas that would please you enormously… I’m greatly enjoying working… As you can see, it’s no longer anything like Rodin,” she wrote to her brother Paul. Claudel kept working independently, and her works were shown in several exhibitions. However, securing and keeping public commissions proved incredibly difficult. While she did receive prestigious commissions, such as the state-sponsored plaster model of The Age of Maturity, they were often caught in bureaucratic and personal crossfire, leading to cancellations or rejections. The male-dominated art world struggled with her way of depicting female sensuality and nudity.

Claudel also believed Rodin to be responsible for the loss of her commission for The Age of Maturity, although his involvement was never proven. A male figure torn between an older woman and a younger one: A piece that seems to show the troublesome relationship between Rodin, his wife, and Claudel.

Reality began to blend with her emerging paranoia, convinced that her former lover and master would use her ideas as his own. Today, about 90 of her works still exist. Claudel’s deteriorating mental health led to periods of destroying her own art. Ultimately, she was committed to a mental asylum in 1913. The sculptor remained institutionalized until her death in 1943. Unlike Rodin, she would never live to witness the success of her own work. Her genius and talent only gained recognition in the 1980s. Since then, countless exhibitions, books, and even films have honored her oeuvre. Still, her relationship to Rodin remained connected to her name.

Victorine Meurent: From Model to Muse to Artist

Victorine Meurent was not even 20 when she met 30-year-old Édouard Manet in Paris in 1862. Where exactly the two met can not be known with certainty. While some theories assume that he discovered her on the streets of Paris, possibly while she was working as a musician, it is more likely that their first encounter happened through their mutual connection with Thomas Couture. Manet had completed his academic training in his atelier, and Meurent was said to have posed as a model for him.

Her name and existence were long unknown in the art world. What made her famous was not her own art but the art that would depict her. Manet chose her for a variety of paintings between 1862 and 1873, the two most prominent being Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe and Olympia.

Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe or Luncheon on the Grass was painted in 1863. In the same year, it was shown at the first Salon des Refusés, the exhibition of the works rejected by the official Paris Salon. While the Salon of the Refused was meant to showcase more progressive and less conservative artworks, Manet’s picnic scene still received backlash. The naked woman next to fully clothed men during a luncheon in the park raised a controversy about how female nudity was to be portrayed in art. The nude was real, too real for the taste of the time.

Manet’s Olympia was created in the same year. In 1865, it was accepted for the Paris Salon. The erotic element of the nude is undeniable here. It shows a demimonde, a courtesan to a wealthy lover, lying naked on a bed, attended by her maid. Instead of an idealized goddess or a passive nude, Olympia contains a certain directness and a confrontation with sex, erotica, and female confidence. The public discourse simply called her a prostitute. This narrative was mirrored in the speculations about the model behind these two controversial paintings, claiming she was a prostitute and an alcoholic who died young.

In reality, the opposite was the case. Victorine Meurent was an artist herself. She even managed to be in the Salon exhibition of 1876, the same year when Manet’s works were rejected. She was accepted to the Salon four times in total, and from 1903 onward, she was an elected member of the Société des Artistes Français. Despite numerous rumors surrounding her persona, she never had any kind of romantic relationship with Manet. Once Meurent decided to pursue her artistic career, she stopped working as a model for him. However, her success and name almost vanished from the history of art. Nearly all of her paintings are lost, and only a few were recovered in this century. Her Self Portrait from 1876 is exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, as the first one shown in a museum outside of France.

Frida Kahlo: The Muse That Became an Icon

The relationship between Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo was complex and powerful. The two artists had a great influence on each other, resulting in outstanding artworks. Today, Kahlo’s name is known worldwide, but at the beginning of their relationship, Rivera had a much stronger reputation.

In 1922, Kahlo was 15 years old and a student at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in Mexico City. Rivera was 20 years older and working on his mural Creation. By that time, he was already an established artist, known for his political works and his approach to cultural identity in post-revolutionary Mexico. The young student, fascinated by his work, observed him for hours.

Several years later, they met again when Kahlo asked Rivera for his opinion about her art. The young woman’s life was severely impacted by a bus accident in which she suffered serious injuries to her spine, pelvis, and abdomen. During her monthlong recovery on bed rest, Kahlo started to paint. Rivera wrote about his first impression of her work: “They had a fundamental plastic honesty, and an artistic personality of their own. They communicated a vital sensuality, complemented by a merciless yet sensitive power of observation. It was obvious to me that this girl was an authentic artist.” His encouragement influenced Kahlo to continue pursuing a serious artistic career.

The pair married in 1929, when Kahlo was 22 years old. She was Rivera’s third wife. Their marriage was passionate and unconventional. Both had multiple affairs, one of them leading to a divorce in 1939 and a remarriage in 1940.

Kahlo processed the ups and downs of her marriage with Diego in her art. Their wedding portrait from 1931 depicts the two standing next to each other. Rivera in a gray suit, tall and large, with brushes and a palette in one hand. He is slightly averted from Kahlo, who is dressed in a long green dress and a vibrant red scarf. The portrait indicates the nature of the beginning years of their marriage: He is the colossal maestro, she the delicate depiction of femininity. Their hands touch ever so slightly, as if Kahlo knew that their bond wasn’t based on traditional monogamy. She writes: “Being the wife of Diego is the most marvelous thing in the world … I let him play matrimony with other women. Diego is not anybody’s husband and never will be, but he is a great comrade.”

While Diego Rivera’s art can be seen as political, historical, and ideological, Kahlo seems to focus more on her individual emotions and trauma processing. An inward-looking art, rather than art that portrays the concerns of a whole society.

In 1939, the year of their divorce, Kahlo painted Las dos Fridas, a self-portrait that addresses topics like national identity, cultural traditions, and her relationship with Rivera. In contrast to the wedding portrait, the two Fridas firmly hold hands. A gesture that can be described as a form of self-healing and a strong connection. Although Rivera’s influence on her life is well-documented and clearly visible in her artworks, Kahlo was never really her husband’s muse, but that of her own.

Margaret Keane: The Muse With the Big Eyes

Margaret Keane could be named the muse that never was one. Although her second husband, Walter Keane, was an artist, it was not his art that made him famous. It was hers.

Born in 1927 in Tennessee as Peggy Doris Hawkins, she developed an interest in art early on. As a result of a mastoid operation, she lost her hearing in one ear and started to rely on her eyes more. This was reflected in her works. When her first and only daughter was born, Keane portrayed her with big eyes. Something that would become her trademark.

After her first marriage ended, Margaret and her daughter moved to San Francisco, where she met Walter Keane at an art exhibition in Berkeley in 1955. The pair got married, and soon after, Walter began to sell Margaret’s paintings. First under her name and then depicted as a group effort. After he realized how well the artworks were received, he sold them as his own. The transition was smooth and quick, and eventually Margaret struggled to find a way out of the scheme.

They both shared a passion for becoming artists, but unlike Margaret, Walter never had any formal education in art. Instead, he had a talent for sales. And in that, he succeeded tremendously.

In the 1950s and 1960s, consumerism was in full bloom. Families moved to the suburbs, bought cars, and household appliances. Affordable art was a market niche that Walter Keane successfully tapped into. Margaret’s works appealed to the taste of the general public. They were figurative and emotional. While art critics and curators often referred to the style as kitsch, the sales figures spoke for themselves.

For over a decade, Margaret produced painting after painting, generating millions. At the height of Walter’s fake artistic career, he got commissioned for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. Tomorrow Forever was displayed in the Hall of Education, showing 100 sad-looking, big-eyed children. Here, however, the style was met with strong disapproval. An article in the New York Times by John Canaday stated: “This tasteless hack work contains about 100 children and hence it is about 100 times as bad as the average Keane.” As a result, the commission was withdrawn.

A year later, the couple divorced, Margaret moved with her daughter to Hawaii and remarried. She continued painting children with big eyes for Walter, afraid of his anger and revenge. The portrayed kids became gradually less sad, surrounded by blue water and vibrant flowers.

Finally, in 1970, Margaret confessed in a radio interview that she was the actual artist behind the paintings. Walter denied the claims for years and even accused his ex-wife of stealing from him. Over a decade later, Margaret filed a lawsuit against Walter, which led to a court-ordered paint-off in front of a judge. She painted one of her classic big-eyed children in under an hour, while Walter claimed to be unable to work due to a shoulder injury. The court awarded Margaret the authorship of her art. Walter was originally ordered to pay 4 million dollars in damages, which was later overruled.

While one could argue that Margaret profited from Walter’s talent for salesmanship, it still took almost 30 years for her to claim ownership of her art back. These years were filled with artistic submission, abuse, and financial control. In the end, it turned out that Margaret was the muse of a salesman. But Walter was never the artist.

Walter Sickert is a rather obscure figure. A British Impressionist trained by James McNeill Whistler and Edgar Degas, he preferred dark tones and deep shadows. Outstandingly talented, Sickert was challenging to be around, shifting his beliefs and ideas as fluidly as he blended colors on his easel. Read on to learn more about seven works by Walter Sickert you need to know.

1. Walter Sickert’s “Little Dot Hetherington at the Old Bedford,” 1888-89

Before becoming an artist, Walter Sickert was interested in theater. Expressive and prone to drama from a young age, Sickert was an insufferable child who aggressively dominated his siblings, skillfully played the victim in every possible situation, and enjoyed the unconditional support of his mother, who clearly favored him over other children. Sickert’s stage career was rather brief. After playing several minor roles, he got bored with theater and started studying art in 1881. Ambitious up to the point of arrogance, he managed to secure a job as the assistant for James McNeill Whistler.

Despite a career change, the theater never truly left his life. Apart from frequently attending the shows, he regularly painted both actors on stage and the crowd that came to see them. In Victorian England, theater was a place for the middle to upper classes to socialize and present themselves to those of similar status.

2. Venetian Series, 1901

Sickert moved from Whistler’s studio to Paris, where he took lessons from Edgar Degas. Combining the influences of the two great modern artists, Sickert developed his own version of Impressionism based on dark tones and deep shadows. He also developed a deep connection to France, spending several years there throughout his life. Venice was another crucial space for Sickert’s oeuvre. In the mid-1890s, Sickert traveled there for the first time, and this trip left a formative impact on his style. Impressed by the architecture and the beauty of the city, he learned how to manipulate light and space by painting Venetian scenes.

Despite being considered a British artist, Sickert had a fluid natural and cultural identity. Born in Bavaria to Danish and Irish parents, in his early years, he identified as German and later as English and even French. The desire to shock and confuse was stronger in him than any other belief, so he changed political affiliation, opinions, and details of his biography as he pleased. He even changed his name in the 1960s, spending his final years as Richard Sickert.

3. La Hollandaise, 1906

The nude feminine figure was one of Sickert’s most popular subjects. His style of painting was rather raw and without idealization. Something uncomfortably physiological in his works still repulses some viewers, especially women.

Most of Sickert’s painted subjects came from the working class. Wealthy and popular, he expressed a borderline unhealthy and fetishistic interest in working-class realities and bodies. He called himself a Realist, yet unlike the famous Realist Gustave Courbet, who felt a deep inner connection to the workers he painted, Sickert was an outside observer—a voyeurist, enjoyably picking at someone’s burdens and suffering.

4. Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom, 1906-07

In 1888, London was shaken by a series of gruesome murders of sex workers. The victims’ bodies were slashed, and some of their inner organs were missing. The killer sent mocking letters to the police officials, introducing himself as Jack The Ripper. His identity was never revealed, and the horrific murders suddenly stopped in 1891. Historians believe that he either died or moved away from London.

In 1907, Walter Sickert painted the dark bedroom of the notorious killer, with the perpetrator’s figure looking out of the window. The layout of the room corresponded to one of Sickert’s studios in London, which he kept secret from his wife and most of his friends. The morbid undertone of the painting, as well as a series of factual coincidences, made some authors and enthusiasts assume that Sickert was, in fact, Jack the Ripper, who confessed his crimes through his art.

Jack the Ripper was the first serial killer to get extensive media coverage, yet, contrary to the popular misconception, he was not the first criminal of such sort. Modern urbanization and changing life pace made these crimes much more visible and easy to cover. Moreover, with the development of psychiatry and medicine, people became able to rationalize the presence of some horrific crimes. Some experts believe that before the modern era, especially in rural areas, the appearances of serial killers might have been attributed to supernatural forces. Thus, the medieval accounts of werewolves and vampires might have been actually the works of serial killers, who were dehumanized in desperate attempts to explain the motives for their actions.

5. Camden Town Murder Series, 1907

Another incriminating evidence against Sickert was revealed the following year. In 1907, a sex worker named Emily Dimmock was murdered in her bedroom in Camden Town, London. Although there was no clear link between the Ripper’s crimes and Dimmock’s murder, the press immediately announced the return of the notorious serial killer.

At the time, Sickert rented a studio in Camden Town. A famous and popular painter, he appeared at the crime scene while the police were there. Later, he attended a public hearing for the murder suspect,  a former client of Dimmock who was soon cleared of all charges. The following year, he presented a series of paintings titled Camden Town Murder, with nude (and supposedly dead) women lying on beds next to fully clothed and desperate men.

The proponents of the Ripper theory focus on Sickert’s obsession with the case and the supposed matches of the victims’ photographs with nude figures in his painting. Although this connection seems tempting, true crime enthusiasts need to understand how fanatical the public obsession with this case was, especially in the circles of cynical intellectuals. The media spread theories of various degrees of absurdity and recounted every gruesome detail of the murder. Thousands of people found it funny to send forged Ripper letters to the police, looking for attention and trying to confuse the authorities. Some were horrified by the crimes, refusing to let their wives and daughters leave their houses, while others found them amusing.

Attending public trials was also nothing out of the ordinary, especially for artists at the time. Sickert’s teacher, Edgar Degas, was interested in physiognomy and went to trials and prisons to study the faces of criminals. Like many of his contemporaries, he believed that the inclination towards crime was reflected by a person’s facial features and body. That being said, while Sickert’s interest seems gruesome, it was not entirely unconventional. For sure, it cannot lead to any accusations or even suspicions. As noted by Jack the Ripper experts, with the same degree of success, one could accuse Vincent van Gogh, Mark Twain, or even Queen Victoria herself of being the infamous murderer.

6. Ennui, 1913

Sickert was progressive in painting style but rather conservative in his work habits. For years, he moved the same props from studio to studio (including the iron bed frame that appeared on many of his paintings) and worked with the same models.

One of his most cherished models was a couple, Hubby and Marie Hayes, a former sailor and Sickert’s housekeeper. Hubby Hayes has also worked in the Sickert household for a while but was fired for being constantly drunk. Ennui was one of the most famous paintings that featured a couple, bored and annoyed with each other, yet living together out of habit. Their sharp emotional detachment is unsettling. Virginia Woolf noted that the scene did not offer a hint of a possible solution for the two, with “the accumulated weariness of innumerable days” discharging its burden over them.

7. Walter Sickert’s Portrait of Winston Churchill

A lesser-known yet important work in Walter Sickert’s later oeuvre was his 1927 portrait of Winston Churchill. Churchill was an amateur painter, rather conservative in his artistic views. Still, he liked Sickert’s work and even befriended the artist after several visits to his studio. Sickert occasionally gave Churchill painting lessons, broadening his creative horizons.

Despite their friendship, Churchill disliked the portrait and gave it away to an art gallery. At the end of his life, Sickert became ill and impoverished despite his previous success. Churchill was among those who raised funds to cover Sickert’s debts. When Churchill became the Prime Minister, he awarded Sickert an annual pension that would support him until his death in 1942.

Many of the world’s greatest writers left a part of themselves wherever they lived and worked, from the foggy streets of London to the sunbathed hills of Tuscany. The thought of visiting a writer’s home can feel abstract, but the moment you enter, the author you’ve been reading for years becomes very real, very quickly. That old desk where your favorite novel was written, and a myriad small personal details: These are the things that can bring a mythical figure to life. The best museums dedicated to authors do precisely that.

1. Shakespeare’s Birthplace, Stratford-Upon-Avon, England

It might be the most visited literary site in the world, and that’s because he is one of the most famous authors of all. The half-timbered house on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon is where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and where he spent his first, formative years. The rooms have been restored to reflect 16th-century domestic life, and the gardens are planted with the flowers and herbs mentioned in his plays.

The site is managed by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, part of a wider collection of Shakespeare properties in town, including Anne Hathaway’s Cottage and Hall’s Croft. But the birthplace itself is where you will likely linger longer, as most everyone does.

Insider tip: Visit on a weekday morning to beat the tour groups. The garden is at its best in late spring, when the flowers referenced in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are in full bloom.

2. The Charles Dickens Museum, London, England

Charles Dickens was a prolific mover of homes, but one address stands above the rest. The Charles Dickens Museum at 48 Doughty Street in the King’s Cross area of London is the only surviving London home of the great Victorian novelist, and it is where he wrote some of his most beloved works, including Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, between 1837 and 1839.

The museum occupies the Georgian terraced house across multiple floors, holding an extensive collection of Dickens-related material: portraits, manuscripts, letters, and personal items filling rooms that have been carefully restored to reflect the period in which Dickens lived here.

Insider tip: The museum often holds evening events and talks that resurrect Dickens’s world in wonderfully entertaining ways. Check the events calendar before you visit.

3. The Jane Austen Center, Bath, England

Bath is as much a character in Jane Austen’s novels as any of her beloved heroines, and the Jane Austen Center does a brilliant job of capturing that relationship. The Center is at 40 Gay Street, the very street where Austen herself lived (at number 25) for some months in 1805. The houses look much as they would have done in her time.

Inside, costumed guides bring the Regency Era to life, and the permanent exhibition explores the impact that Bath had on Austen’s writing and her feelings about the city (spoiler: they were complicated).

Insider tip: The center puts on a Jane Austen Festival each September, when the entire city embraces Regency dress and outdoor promenades. It holds the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people dressed in Regency costume. If you can time your visit for that week, do.

4. The Hemingway Home and Museum, Key West, Florida, US

Ernest Hemingway bought his Spanish Colonial house in Key West in 1931 and lived there for about a decade, producing some of his most important work, including A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Today, the Hemingway Home and Museum is considered one of the best museums dedicated to an author in the US.

The house is as charming as you might hope, with lush tropical gardens, a writing studio above the pool house, and nearly 60 cats roaming the property at their leisure. About half of them display the distinctive polydactyl (six-toed) trait, descendants of a cat named Snow White, a gift from a sea captain to Hemingway. Guided tours are full of personality, much like the writer himself.

Insider tip: The cats are a genuine highlight and are remarkably sociable with visitors. Each one is named after a celebrity, continuing a tradition that Hemingway himself started.

5. The Leo Tolstoy Estate Museum, Yasnaya Polyana, Russia

About 124 miles south of Moscow, the estate of Yasnaya Polyana was Leo Tolstoy’s birthplace, lifelong home, and final resting place. He wrote both War and Peace and Anna Karenina here, and the estate remained his primary abode for most of his 82 years. It is one of the most important literary pilgrimage sites in the world.

The museum preserves the estate much as it was during Tolstoy’s time. You can walk through his study, see his personal library of around 22,000 books, and wander the grounds where he walked daily, which inspired the landscapes in his fiction.

Insider tip: Summer is definitely the time to visit, when Moscow’s weather is friendlier, and the estate offers cultural programs and outdoor events. The surrounding birch forests are beautiful year-round, but especially so in autumn when the leaves turn gold.

6. The Franz Kafka Museum, Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is so thoroughly associated with Franz Kafka that it can feel as though the city itself is one of his creations. The Franz Kafka Museum, located in the Malá Strana district, explores the link between the author and the city that formed his creativity.

The museum is divided into two parts: there’s the Existential Space, which presents Kafka’s inner world through his writings, and the Imaginary Topography, which maps his fictional landscapes onto the real streets of Prague.

Insider tip: Combine a visit with a walk through Josefov, the old Jewish Quarter, where Kafka was born and spent much of his life.

7. The Victor Hugo House, Paris, France

Between 1832 and 1848, Victor Hugo rented a roughly 3,000-square-foot apartment on the second floor of the Hôtel de Rohan-Guémené on Paris’ Place des Vosges. Today, that apartment is the Maison de Victor Hugo, a municipal museum dedicated to the life and work of one of France’s most revered literary figures.

The rooms are filled with furniture that Hugo designed himself, his drawings (he was a prolific visual artist as well as a writer), personal items, and portraits. The reconstruction of the dining room he created for his home in Guernsey during his years of political exile is particularly fascinating. The Place des Vosges is itself one of the most beautiful squares in all of Paris, which makes this one of the more pleasant literary detours imaginable.

Insider tip: While the permanent collection is traditionally free, note that due to exceptional 2026 ticketing measures, admission is temporarily paid for all museum areas through November 22. The museum is an easy and rewarding addition to a walk through the Marais.

8. The Mark Twain House and Museum, Hartford, Connecticut, US

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, lived in his Hartford home from 1874 to 1891, and he called it the house that his writing built. It was here that he produced The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Prince and the Pauper, among others.

The Mark Twain House and Museum is a Victorian Gothic delight, designed by New York architect Edward Tuckerman Potter. In 1881, Twain contracted with Louis Comfort Tiffany’s firm, Associated Artists, to decorate the walls and ceilings of the main rooms, giving the interior its eye-catching and distinctive character. The adjacent museum building puts everything into a wider context with engaging exhibitions on Twain’s life and legacy.

Insider tip: The house is within easy walking distance of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, making Hartford a rewarding single-day literary destination.

9. The Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, England

Perched atop the steep main street in the Yorkshire village of Haworth, the Brontë Parsonage Museum is the former home of one of the most extraordinary literary families in history. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë grew up in this modest Georgian house from 1820 onward, and it was here, looking out over the wild moorland that would influence their fiction, that they wrote Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

As you might expect, the museum holds the world’s largest collection of Brontë artifacts, including original manuscripts, personal letters, and childhood writing.

Insider tip: A walk across the moors to Top Withens, the ruined farmhouse thought to have inspired Wuthering Heights, is about four miles round trip and well worth the effort on a clear day.

10. Isla Negra House Museum (and La Chascona), Chile

Full disclosure: Neruda is this author’s favorite poet, which makes this the most enthusiastically recommended entry on the list!

Pablo Neruda was many things: Nobel Prize winner, diplomat, passionate collector, and one of the 20th century’s most beloved poets. He was also, by any measure, a man who knew how to make a home. Of his three extraordinary houses in Chile, all now managed by the Pablo Neruda Foundation, Isla Negra is undoubtedly the most enchanting.

Built from 1937 onward, on a rocky stretch of Pacific coastline just south of Valparaíso, Isla Negra was Neruda’s favorite retreat and his most intimate creation. He kept adding to it over decades until it became a series of interconnected spaces that feel far less like a house and much more like a ship run aground in the most wonderful way. Tight wooden corridors open onto rooms filled with his legendary collections: ship figureheads, nautical maps, shells, bottles, masks, and miniature boats gathered from a lifetime of travel. Every window faces the sea.

Insider tip: If you are visiting Santiago first, do not miss La Chascona, the elaborate house Neruda built in 1953 for his then-secret lover Matilde Urrutia. It is tucked into the hillside of the bohemian Barrio Bellavista, and among its treasures is a portrait of Matilde painted by Diego Rivera, in which Neruda’s face is hidden within her hair. It is exactly as romantic as it sounds!