Q 01/05

Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa on what, rather than canvas?

A) A poplar panel

B) A copper sheet

C) A plaster wall

D) A vellum sheet

Answer · why

A) A poplar panel

A poplar panel. The wood has warped over five centuries and cracked from its top edge; restorers braced the back, and it now sits in a climate-control...

Q 02/05

The Mona Lisa's thief was arrested in 1913 in which city, where Leonardo had trained?

A) Bologna

B) Florence

C) Milan

D) Venice

Answer · why

B) Florence

Florence. The thief, former Louvre workman Vincenzo Peruggia, had hidden it in a trunk in his Paris lodgings for two years; police had even treated Pa...

Q 03/05

The Starry Night depicts the view from Van Gogh's window at what kind of institution?

A) A prison

B) A boarding school

C) An asylum

D) An army barracks

Answer · why

C) An asylum

An asylum. Van Gogh had admitted himself after cutting off part of his ear; he invented the village in the view, and later dismissed the painting as a...

Q 04/05

Which Vermeer painting is a 'tronie', a study of a type of character rather than a portrait?

A) The Milkmaid

B) Woman Holding a Balance

C) The Girl with the Wine Glass

D) Girl with a Pearl Earring

Answer · why

D) Girl with a Pearl Earring

Girl with a Pearl Earring. In 1881 a collector bought it at a Hague auction for two guilders and thirty cents, then left it to the Mauritshuis in his ...

Q 05/05

Thieves took Munch's The Scream on the opening day of which 1994 event?

A) Winter Olympics

B) World Cup

C) Eurovision

D) Cannes Film Festival

Answer · why

A) Winter Olympics

Winter Olympics. As the Games opened in Lillehammer, two men broke into Oslo's National Gallery, took the painting in under a minute and left a note: ...