What's In A Painting? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tarts

The painting offers a plethora of proverbs, some that are also used in English, such as "to bang one's head against a wall", whilst others are not. The proverb in question is "to have the roof tiled with tarts", meaning to be very wealthy, which falls into the latter group.

American band The Fleet Foxes used the painting on the cover of their debut album. The original is in Berlin, but actually Vienna is the place to go if you want to see a lot of Bruegel.

Answer: An owl

It's much disputed whether this portrait is a workhouse inmate, a drunken lady in a pub scene, a witch, or an amalgamation of all three. There is evidence to support all theories. Apparently there are records of a Malle Babbe being in an asylum where one of Hals' offspring ended up. In Dutch "Malle" means loony. However, she is having a pint, and Hals often painted pub scenes.

Then there is the owl. Although the owl has long meant "wisdom" in sophisticated Western society, it's also had long associations with witchcraft in folklore, where it's very much like the witch's black cat. The painting is alternatively known as "The Witch Of Haarlem".

Bosch also often painted owls, often sitting aloft a scene where morality has gone astray.

Answer: His leg is bandaged and on a stool

Two fathers, one filthy rich, the other broke (but titled) come up with a cunning plan to benefit their own ends: marrying their offspring. The couple-to-be don't look best pleased. In this scene, the Earl, cleverly named Squanderfield, is seen to have gout, thus his bandaged leg. Gout is associated with over-indulgence in drink and food. The walls are adorned with paintings of catastrophic scenes, seemingly a bad omen for the couple.

Hogarth was a master at biting social satire and is still much-loved by the British public, who uncannily admire his work.

Answer: A parrot

The first thing I noticed when I saw this painting was how amazingly the garments and fabrics are rendered. Then I noticed the cleric on the right, and again in what a lifelike manner he had been painted. This wasn't just Van Eyck showboating, he was aiming to set the Madonna and child firmly in our world, or rather in the world of Canon Van Der Paele, to show "the reality of God in our world".

The parrot and nosegay would have immediately reminded the public of the theme of the Garden Of Eden.

Answer: Chicken's feet

This colossal painting, kept in Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, has had a chequered past. It was originally even bigger, but was barbarically trimmed down. It was also covered in varnish, giving it a dark, gloomy look and prompting the name "The Night Watch". However, later scholars now think it was probably supposed to show a daylight scene. It's also suffered further barbarism in the shape of lunatic vandals, the first attacking it with a knife, the second spraying it with acid.

The small girl in the centre-left background is one of the most important characters. She's wearing yellow, symbolising victory, whereas the chicken's feet and the goblet in her hand are symbols of the infantry unit depicted

Answer: Rhinoceros

Clara the rhinoceros arrived in the Netherlands in 1741, toured much of Europe, and died in London. Longhi painted her when she appeared at the Venice carnival in 1751.

Dürer also drew a rhinoceros, in 1515, but he never actually saw the beast and based his drawing on other people's. Unfortunately,"Dürer's Rhinoceros", as the animal became known, was shipwrecked and died during its tour.

Rembrandt did lots of elephant sketches. The elephant who posed for him was probably a female called Hansken, who was around Holland in the mid-17th century.

Salvador Dalí often painted burning giraffes.

Lots of people have painted Saint George slaying the dragon. Two of my personal favourites are in the National Gallery, London. The first is by Paolo Uccello, from around 1470, and the other is by French Symbolist, Gustave Moreau.

Answer: Map(s)

In "Vermeer: Veiled Emotions ", Norbert Schneider explains: "Vermeer's love of maps becomes apparent in the way he decorates his interiors. The role of maps was two-fold: on the one hand, they indicated wealth (in the 17th century, maps were an expensive luxury); on the other hand, they refer to a good level of education. Cartography was still a new science, but was beginning to be held in high regard. To refer to maps was frequently a device on the part of Vermeer by which to allude to contemporary political situations".

Vermeer alluded to nationalist politics in much of his work, one example being the brightly lit Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in "View Of Delft" as it housed the tomb of William of Orange.

Answer: A quill

The painting shows an idealised portrait of David's personal friend, French Revolution radical writer and political agitator Marat in his death throes, in his medicinal bathtub (he had bad skin). In his left hand he holds a sheet of paper bearing his killer's name, probably the permit she had gained to see him. The murder weapon is also on the floor. Marat is painted in the style that evokes paintings of Christian martyrs, referencing classical art, not only as a fitting ode to a revolutionary hero, but also to hint that an egalitarian republic could also aim to high art.

Norwegian artist Edvard Munch also painted the subject, albeit with a much-changed vibe.

Answer: Poaching

The old woman also turns up in "Christ In The House Of Martha And Mary", leading scholars to believe she was probably a member of the artist's household. Diego (we're on first-name terms) paid a great deal of attention to cooking methods and ingredients, even more than the biblical scene going on in the background of the "Christ" painting. One of his earliest works is also a kitchen scene with religious stuff going on in the background, "Kitchen Maid with the Supper of Emmaus".

I recall looking at the first two paintings as a child and trying desperately to work out exactly what was being cooked. Eggs weren't poached in our house, so I have always imagined it to be an incredibly exotic method.

Answer: A funnel

The painting, housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, shows a funnel-capped surgeon getting a flower rather than a stone out of a man's head. According to Walter Bosing: "The stone operation was a piece of quackery that claimed to be able to cure the patient of his stupidity through the supposed removal of the stone of folly from his head. Fortunately, it was performed only fictively at annual fairs and other popular gatherings". The painting also shows a nun, wearing a book on her head. Boswell explains the funnel thus: "perhaps an allusion to his deceitful intentions - and the book on the head of the nun, perhaps intended as an encyclopedia for charlatans".

Owls in trees often crop up in Bosch's work. A bird-headed monster can be seen with a cauldron on its head in the "Hell" scene from "The Garden Of Earthly Delights".

Answer: A beheading

Much has been written about Caravaggio's boisterous lifestyle, and it was indeed as dramatic as his paintings, so much so that he was virtually written out of art history until the late 19th century, and he wasn't fully celebrated until scholar Roberto Longhi brought him to the public eye. Longhi claimed "Ribera, Vermeer, la Tour and Rembrandt could never have existed without him. And the art of Delacroix, Courbet and Manet would have been utterly different".

On the painting in question, Gilles Lambert says:"An old servant-woman with a cruel expression is helping Judith and waiting to catch the head in a cloth. Here Caravaggio was inspired by Leonardo, whose drawing, done in his old age, is now in Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan. Caravaggio in his turn inspired Artemisia Gentileschi. Having been raped as a young girl, she painted several versions of Judith decapitating Holophernes in an attempt to exorcise her hatred of men."

Answer: A little girl

This painting makes a welcome appearance in Volume One of Marcel Proust's masterpiece "In Search Of Lost Time: Swann's Way": "He (Swann) would begin with the sustained tremolos of the violin parts which for several bars are heard alone, filling the whole foreground; until suddenly they seemed to draw aside, and - as in those interiors by Pieter de Hooch which are deepened by the narrow frame of an half-opened door, in the far distance, of a different colour, velvety with the radiance of some intervening light - the little phrase appeared, dancing, pastoral, interpolated, episodic, belonging to another world".

Answer: A pomegranate

The Emperor had already died by the time Dürer had finished the portrait. Apparently the pomegranate, which has a slice in it so we can see inside, symbolizes the Holy Roman Empire, and the pips are the subjects. Whatever it means, it's a great inside/outside trick.

His other hand is resting on the lower edge of the painting, brilliantly giving the illusion of it being some kind of ledge.

Answer: Flaying

Sisamnes was a dodgy 6th century judge who accepted a backhander in return for a ruling. The gruesome punishment involved his flayed skin being used to upholster the chair he had sat on as judge. Persian King Cambyses II then appointed Sisamnes's son, Otanes, as the new judge, who would be constantly reminded of his father's fate and put off any bribery.

Gerard David was commissioned to depict the story as a warning to Bruges' magistrates. The whole story is cleverly portrayed in the paintings, and the clothing and setting was very much 15th century Flemish, rendering the warning all the more pertinent.

Flaying has had its fair showing in art history, most famously by Michelangelo's Saint Bartholomew in "The Last Judgement" (Sistine Chapel). Venetian master Titian's little known work "The Flaying of Marsyas" also shows the brutal practice. The 2008 British action comedy film, "In Bruges", features the David painting when the errant gangsters wind up in the Belgian museum.

Answer: A cat

Skate crop up frequently in French naturalist author Émile Zola's work, most notably in "Belly Of Paris" (Le Ventre de Paris). In the novel young upstart Florent gets a job as market inspector at Les Halles, and one day tries to get a fishmonger woman to throw out a rotten skate, which leads to a confrontation he has to back down from. The novel is chock full of food references, most famously for the cheese shop scene which became known as "the cheese symphony".
The skate in Chardin's work looks a little more tempting, but not much. Even the cat isn't hugely interested.

Skate actually grow very slowly and overfishing puts them at high risk of extinction. Campaigners might want to exploit both artists' work to try and put people off eating them.