When Jan Vermeer died, he left behind enormous debts. His widow, Catharina Bolnes, had to transfer ownership of her late husband's masterpiece Painter in his Studio (The Allegory of Painting) to her mother, Maria Thins, to keep it out of creditors' hands. However, a year later it was sold at auction and disappeared for more than 130 years. In 1813, the piece became part of Count Czernin's collection. He bought the painting for an extremely low price, having no idea that it was created by the great master from Delft. The aristocrat thought it was a painting by Pieter de Hooch, whose works cost much more at that time. It was only in the autumn of 1860 that the director of the Berlin museum, Gustav Waagen, recognized The Allegory of Painting as an authentic Vermeer.

During World War II, the Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window by Jan Vermeer was brought from Dresden to Saxony and kept there in a tunnel, which rescued it from destruction. The soldiers of the Red Army sent the painting to the Soviet Union, but after the death of Joseph Stalin, the Soviets decided to return it to Germany, "for the purpose of strengthening and furthering the progress of friendship between the Soviet and German peoples." Aggrieved at the thought of losing hundreds of paintings, art historians and museum curators in the Soviet Union suggested that "in acknowledgment for saving and returning the world-famous treasures of the Dresden Gallery" the Germans should perhaps donate to them Vermeer's masterpiece and Sleeping Venus by Giorgione. The Germans did not take to the idea, and the painting was returned to Germany in 1955.

The impressionist artist Gustave Caillebotte was better known as a patron of art. Having inherited his father's fortune, he supported still unrecognized artists of the time: he bought works, paid for the workshops (for example, Monet), organized exhibitions and auctions where he exhibited paintings from his own collection and bought them at a high price – a marketing move! His hobby were orchids, yachts building, and textile design. And in the honorary "List of outstanding philatelists" he is listed as the "father of philately", his stamp collection is now in the British Museum. He willed a collection of 68 impressionist works (Pissarro, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Degas, Cézanne, Manet, etc.) to France, now the paintings are a part of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, and the remainder is in the D'Orsay Museum.

Auguste Renoir liked painting pictures but didn't like talking about them. The connoisseurs of art, who grilled the artist about the sublime even on a train, would often hear his: "Sorry, I know nothing about high art, my works are pornographic". Yet, there's a grain of joke in every joke. The same Renoir was quite serious when saying: "I loved women even before I learned to walk... I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.”

One of the finest and most famous works created by Alfons Mucha is a gold bracelet called Médée Snake. The snake wrapped around the ring wraps the wrist, and the snake's sting passes into the ring through a thin chain. For the first time the image of this bracelet appeared on the playbill for the Médée play. The actress liked it so much that she commissioned jeweller to create a snake bracelet and a ring embellished with gemstones for her to wear on stage. This bracelet shows that his creator was an artist, for the beautiful decoration has no practical application. After all, in the world, there is no such thin and elegant hand, on which it could be put on! The Médée Snake is called "jewelery of the century".

In 1832, the paintings of two famous artists, who had a quarrel a year before because their paintings had been hung side-by-side, ended up on the same wall of the hall at the Royal Academy of arts. Constable's Opening of Waterloo Bridge was a complex work which had been in progress for ten years. Turner's Helvoetsluys seemed to be a simpler seascape. Shortly before the opening, Constable was adding final touches to his piece. Turner walked in, looked at both paintings, and then added one detail to his one – a little red buoy swaying on the waves. The bright spot instantly attracted the attention of the audience. Constable complained that Turner had been in and 'fired a gun'. 180 years after the first conflict of these landscape artists, their "controversial" paintings were hung side-by-side again.

The main source of biographical information about Caravaggio – police and court records: there's at least one murder and countless fights under the belt of the Italian genius. One of these recorded fights gives reason to think that Caravaggio was not only a thug who should have been sent to anger management courses, but also a gourmet.
It happened in the tavern. A waiter served Caravaggio and two of his friends a large earthenware dish with eight artichokes: half of them were fried in oil and half – in butter. Caravaggio asked which were which: perhaps for him it was as important as light and shadow. The waiter shrugged and suggested that Caravaggio should sniff the artichokes to find out for himself. Caravaggio immediately leapt up, hit him with an earthenware dish and drew his ever-ready sword.

A young singer became a model for the Christ in the famous Da Vinci’s painting. Then for another three years, Leonardo was looking for a model to depict Judas. And suddenly, when he saw a drunkard lying about in the gutter, the artist decided that it was the man to pose for Judas! He dragged his "find" into a tavern, where he immediately began to paint him as Judas. When the drunk man sobered up, he told the artist that he had already posed for him when he sang in the church choir: it was the same man who was da Vinci's model for Christ.

When Pierre-Auguste Renoir was only four years old, his family moved to Paris and settled near the royal palace. No, they were not rich – it's just Paris was completely different in 1845. Back then, next to the palace, there still were houses built in the 16th century for the royal guard. Now, three centuries later, these houses were pretty worn out and the paint was peeling off. These houses became homes of very simple families, who weren’t accustomed to luxury and comfort: those of artisans and small traders. Their children played all day in the royal garden.
When Queen Maria Amalia was tired of the noise, she opened her window and treated little rascals to sweets. Thus, the queen managed to calm them down for a while and had a little quiet time.

At the age of 15, Arkhip Kuindzhi started studying art under Aivazovsky. A shy, full-bodied young man arrived in Feodosia wearing a shirt, a colourful vest, checkered pants bubbling on his knees, and a straw hat. The young Kuindzhi really amused Ivan Aivazovsky and his daughter Elena, who had a good laugh at his naive village daub and crimson face. Arkhip lived under the shed in the yard for two months, since he was not allowed into the studio. At the end of his "training" the master entrusted Kuindzhi to paint his fence (though he got some practical advice from Aivazovsky's disciple Adolf Faessler). Kuindzhi learned this lesson for life and Kuindzhi never refused anyone anything.

An unstudious student, Claude painted the covers of notebooks and drew cartoons of teachers. The latter were so good that by the age of 15 he was famous in his native Le Havre as a skillful caricaturist. They asked him to draw caricature portraits, and he did, this time for money: 20 francs! Soon the amusing drawings by Claude Monet were displayed in the window of the only art supplies store in the city. The young Monet glowed with pride seeing them.

Arkhip Kuindzhi adored birds. He considered himself a “birds' chosen one”, said that the birds understood his speech and let him pet them. Usually laconic Arkhip Kuindzhi became extremely talkative when it came to birds. He spent hours sitting on the roof of his house, "talking" with pigeons and crows. Every month he bought 60 French buns, up to 10 kg of meat and 6 sacks of oats to feed his feathered friends. Once the illustrator Pavel Scherbov published a caricature depicting Kuindzhi giving an enema to a bird. They say that Arkhip Kuindzhi, deprived of sense of humour, got terribly offended.

English landscape painter John Constable exhibited his Hay Wain (which is now considered one of the greatest English paintings) in 1921. However, back then it was given a cool reception: critics considered the artist's energetic brushstrokes careless. The Frenchman Théodore Géricault, who at that time was on a visit to London, came home and praised his English colleague in front of a dealer John Arrowsmith. The latter bought four of the artist's paintings, including The Hay Wain, and it paid off: it was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1824, winning a gold medal. Moreover, Eugène Delacroix repainted the background of his Massacre de Scio after seeing the artist's "careless brushstrokes".

Old masters often portrayed brawlers and drunkards, and wine served as one of the debauchery symbols. In the painting by Jan Steen "Rascal Family", the mistress of the house tramples the Bible, the maid fills her glass with wine, holding the hand of the owner of the house. Fate hangs over these people’s heads in the form of a basket with a sword (justice and punishment), a crutch and a mug (impending poverty) and a beater (it was used by those who suffered of plague and leprosy). A brave artist! Steen himself (the father of the family), his wife Margriet van Goyen (mother) and their sons Thaddeus (behind the grandmother) and Cornelis were the models for the picture!

Towards the end of his life, Thomas Gainsborough often quarrelled with his wife Margaret Burr. With age, she became stingier and more grumbling. Gainsborough would flare up at the slightest provocation and curse. And yet, he was always the first one who would try to make it up with his wife: he would write a note of repentance, sign it with the name of his favourite dog, ‘Fox’, and address it to his wife’s pet spaniel, ‘Tristram’. This forbidden trick always worked with Margaret. She would immediately start writing an answer to Gainsborough's dog: "My own dear Fox, you are always loving and good, and I am a naughty little female ever to worry you as I too often do, so we will kiss and say no more about it. Your own affectionate, Tris."

Botticelli was unhappy in love and never married, because he was in love with Simonetta Vespucci, the first beauty of the Renaissance era, dubbed La Sans Pareille. She became a model of the famous painting "The Birth of Venus", her image was also on other canvases by the master. Unfortunately, Simonetta never belonged to him: she was the wife of Marco Vespucci (the cousin of the famous Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci!) and the beloved of the younger brother of the Florentine ruler Giuliano Medici. However, it didn’t make Simonetta’s fate happy. The beauty, which made crazy all the noble men of the city, died of tuberculosis at the age of 23. Botticelli was buried next to Simonetta in the church of Ognisanti 34 years after her death, according to the will of the creator.

According to the memories of his relatives, the first word of the baby Pablo Picasso was the word "pencil". When the boy grew up, his father began to take his son with him to college, where he taught drawing. And, one day, Picasso’s father for some reason was allegedly called from the office, where he was working on a painting depicting pigeons. On return, he found that the young Pablo finished the picture. The mastery of the 13-year-old son shocked his father so much that he gave Pablo his palette and brush, and since then he no longer came to easel.

William Turner's love of money was widely known and became the subject of many jokes. One of them was described by the artist's biographer George Walter Thornbury. When Turner arrived in Yorkshire, he brought the bookseller Robinson a sealed letter of recommendation from London Longman publishers. It was written there that “Above all things remember that Turner is the Great Jew.” Most likely, it was about his commerciality, but Robinson took everything literally. He would loudly assume that the guest would not want to go to church on Sunday and apologize when pork was served at the table.

...According to the memoirs of their contemporaries, Raphael and Agostino Chigi (his richest customer) were friends. And yet, duty before friendship. Once Raphael painted several frescoes for Chigi. Having finished his work, the artist unexpectedly demanded to double the payment. At first, Agostino Chigi's cashier Julio Borghese refused to do that, but Raphael would not budge. "Call on the experts and you will see how moderate I am in my demands," he argued.
Knowing the strained relations between Raphael and Michelangelo, Borghese chose the latter to be an expert. Buonarroti came, slowly and silently examined the frescoes of his rival, and pointing to the head of one of the sibyls said, "That head alone is worth 100 ducats, the others are worth not less." He disliked Raphael, but would never allow himself to be biased.

The famous American photo artist Richard Prince sold Instagram online pictures of Selena Mooney for 90 thousand dollars at the exhibition in the Gagosian gallery. Now she sells the same photos for 90 dollars. This is her Roland for an Oliver dor his plagiarism. Prince took her photo for his project without permission, and yet he steals other people's works in a broad manner since the 1970's – such a "pop art trick"! Sometimes it comes to trial, but without much shock for the "projector": one of the verdicts was simply canceled a couple of years ago.