Q 01/05

The Mona Lisa is painted on what surface?

A) A white poplar panel

B) Stretched linen canvas

C) A wet plaster wall

D) A sheet of copper

Answer · why

A) A white poplar panel

Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa in oil on a white poplar panel about 77 by 53 cm, the usual support in Italy before canvas took over.

Q 02/05

Who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, claiming it belonged in Italy?

A) Guillaume Apollinaire

B) Adam Worth

C) Vincenzo Peruggia

D) Pablo Picasso

Answer · why

C) Vincenzo Peruggia

Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre handyman, hid the painting in his Paris flat for two years and was caught in Florence in December 1913 trying to sell it.

Q 03/05

Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889 from the window of what?

A) A boat on the Rhône

B) His asylum room at Saint-Rémy

C) His Yellow House in Arles

D) A café in Montmartre

Answer · why

B) His asylum room at Saint-Rémy

Van Gogh painted the view from his asylum room at Saint-Rémy, the east-facing window of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole; the canvas has hung at MoMA in New York...

Q 04/05

How many versions of The Scream did Edvard Munch create, in paint and pastel?

A) One

B) Two

C) Seven

D) Four

Answer · why

D) Four

Munch made four versions: two painted, in 1893 and 1910, and two in pastel, from 1893 and 1895; the 1895 pastel sold for nearly $120 million in 2012.

Q 05/05

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer is what kind of painting, in Dutch 17th-century terms?

A) A commissioned family portrait

B) A biblical history painting

C) An allegory of the senses

D) A tronie, a study of a head

Answer · why

D) A tronie, a study of a head

Vermeer's picture is a tronie, a study of a head in exotic costume rather than a portrait of a named sitter; it has been in the Mauritshuis since 1902...