In 2015, a geologist and art historian Ann Pizzorusso questioned the attribution of the painting Virgin of the Rocks from National Gallery in London to Leonardo da Vinci. It was all about... flowers. The flora in the Louvre version of the piece is painted as perfectly as possible, while the British version contains some irregularly-shaped and unidentifiable flowers. It is unlikely that one and the same person could paint a grotto so neatly in one work and so unnaturally in another. Especially when taking into account Leonardo being immersed in the comprehension of nature and depicting it. By the way, the London painting had long been considered a work of the master’s students and da Vinci's authorship was asserted only in 2010. And the National Gallery refused to comment on a new research.

Turner was an “expensive” and respectable artist, a member of the Royal Academy. The collector, who bought “The Golden Bough” from Turner, turned to the author with a claim soon after the deal. One of the characters... fell off the canvas! "Hey, it's just paper!" Turner was surprised. He himself forgot how he made a sketch of a naked man in a classroom, and found that its proportions and pose fits perfectly into an almost finished picture. So he simply pasted the figure onto the canvas. Turner intended to paint it with oil later, but forgot. "Most likely, I would not have remembered about it if it wasn’t for you!" He grumbled to the disgruntled buyer. There were no other apologies: Turner never cared to be nice.

US President Dwight Eisenhower became interested in painting before moving into the Oval Office. He claimed to be influenced by the prime minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill in his decision to take up the paintbrush. While he produced over 250 known works in his lifetime, the 34th President of the United States never took it too seriously. In a conversation with reporter Richard Cohen, after being asked about the symbolism in one of his pieces, he replied: "Let’s get something straight here, Cohen. They would have burned this [expletive] a long time ago if I weren’t the president of the United States."

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.

The Russian artist had a legendary exclusive visual memory. One day, into the hometown of Vrubel, Saratov, they brought a large-scale copy of the "Last Judgment" fresco by the great Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo. The future brilliant Russian artist was just Misha then, he was 9 years old. The boy took pencils and brushes at the age of five, so he hastened to look at the work, housed in the church, together with his father, and for a long time he studied every detail of it, even though his father called him to return home. Afterwards, having retired to his nursery, he reproduced the seemingly impossible for the child composition with masterful precision.

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.

In his last years, Salvador Dalí suffered from parkinsonism, which precluded him from painting. And then his wife, incomparable and extraordinary Gala, found a Spanish artist Manuel Pujol of Baladas. In 1979–1981, he created about 400 works: oil paintings (about 200!), drawings, watercolors, lithographs, and he signed each of them with the famous signature of Salvador Dalí. These "unpleasant" details became known to the public, but the surrealist did not lose his head. He said that fakes are excellent, and they could well be his works!

The author's copy of the famous "Portrait of Jacopo Foscarini", seized by the Nazis from art historian and collector August Liebmann Mayer, was kept in the Louvre since 1951. The picture, presumably, by Giovanni Batista Moroni was returned to the daughter of the owner, who died in a concentration camp, at a special ceremony at the Jewish Heritage Museum (New York, USA). The undisputed original work is stored in Budapest; it is a notable work in the artist's heritage.

Born in Parma and known as Parmigianino in honour of his hometown, Francesco Mazzola (1503-1540) lived only 37 years. During his lifetime, he was called the "reincarnation of Raphael" and was revered for his great talent. Thus, in 1527, the mercenaries of Charles V captured Rome, while Parmigianino was working on the altar image, "The Vision of Saint Jerome". The soldiers burst into the workshop, but when they saw the artist at work, they did not touch him or the pictures. However, later they employed him much with extra work... Moreover, the artist also burned with passion for alchemy, and this caused his delay of an important commission from the church community of Santa Maria della Steccata, and was taken into custody. After the release, he immediately left Parma, but did not abandon his addiction.

Rembrandt began to accept students, barely out of adolescence. The first apprentice of the 21-year-old painter was Gerrit Dou, who at that time was not yet 15 years old. It seems that Rembrandt never took beginners. A pupil’s parents had to pay the artist an annual tuition fee of 100 guilders. Rembrandt’s students learned by copying their master’s works and, later, by painting and drawing their own variations based on them. They had to work in an attic in separate cubicles partitioned by sailcloth or paper.

On one of the Paris boulevards an artist was working on his painting, having put an easel right on the street. Passers-by, used to such phenomena, now and then stopped nearby, looked over his shoulder, commented the painting in a low voice, and sometimes asked questions. A couple of Russian tourists watched for a long time how the bold, shining brushstrokes of the artist came to life on his canvas. One of them couldn't resist saying: "These French artists are so good at colour rendering!" "And the Russian ones are not worse! " – answered the first Russian Impressionist Konstantin Korovin.

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.

The phenomenal Erté (Roman Tyrtov), one of the icons of Art Deco, not only designed exquisite and extravagant clothes for fashionistas, but also wore them. Once, American costume designer Howard Greer met Erté wearing his pyjamas with a hem and collar, simulating ermine. In 1926, he appeared at Paris Opera ball wearing a brocade bullfighter costume of his own design. He decorated a huge cape with fresh roses, which he threw into the crowd, going down the stairs. Erté had this passion for bright clothes and extravagant accessories till the end of his life. He wore his costumes “with a unique grace with which wild cat wears its fur,” wrote one of the journalists.

Ellen Andrée is a famous Parisian actress who performed in the Palais-Royal and in the bar at the Folies-Bergère. She was a model for Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet, and Edgar Degas; she also spent time with the artists and poets in the café New Athens, which was unprecedented audacity for the time. Ladies could visit drinking establishments only accompanied.
The painting L'Absinthe, for which Andrée posed together with the artist Marcellin Desboutin, also negatively affected her reputation. It caused a big fuss; the painting was called disgusting and immoral, they saw a challenge in it and, of course, suspected models of heavy drinking. Edgar Degas had to make an official statement that neither Ellen, nor Marcellin was an alcoholic – they just perfectly played their roles. To make up for such a blow to her reputation, Degas even offered Ellen one of his works as a gift.

For a long time, the famous English Pre-Raphaelite artists George Frederick Watts and Frederic Leighton were not only friends, but also neighbours. They lived on adjacent plots of a unique artists' colony built in Holland Park in the second half of the XIX century. The "brothers in art" shared the gate that connected their gardens, and every morning Leighton would call Watts to tell him about the latest news of the Royal Academy of Arts. Leighton was a member of each committee of the Royal Academy, the so-called social activist, and in 1878, at the early age of 48 he became president of the Academy. Watts wasn't that interested in the affairs of the institution, and Leighton was constantly making efforts to prevent his friend from being excluded from it.

Yvette Guilbert, the Moulin Rouge cabaret singer, hugely impressed the artist Toulouse-Lautrec. He told all his friends about her, took them to concerts, and didn't miss her single performance himself. Once, Toulouse-Lautrec made a charcoal sketch for a poster and sent it to Guilbert with a proposal for collaboration. That sketch was cruel and striking, offensive and sensitive. Guilbert was ready to print the poster, but it turned out that she was the only one who wanted to do it. Her friends and family were offended by that ugly, grotesque caricature, and her entrepreneur threatened to break the contract. Soon Guilbert and Lautrec met in person. He conceived a 14-page album of lithographs dedicated to her – and she agreed to pose. The album appeared to be scandalous – this time the outraged friends recommended Yvette to sue Lautrec without hesitation. Instead, she put her signature on each copy of the album.

Venus Verticordia, created in 1868, is the only nude painting by the Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Because of it, he broke with John Ruskin, the leading English art critic of the Victorian era. Ruskin's hypocrisy and double attitude to the female body are well documented. He found sensuality in Rossetti's art disturbing. Unable to resist the true cause of his discomfort towards Venus herself, he unleashed harsh criticism on the roses, which the artist painted with great difficulty. But, most likely, Ruskin's reaction wasn't caused by the flowers. He was frightened by the woman looking from the canvas so seductively and powerfully that the critic found it menacing.

When the house is under repair, the true artists paint from nature! Caillebotte submitted his painting Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Scrapers) to the jury of the Salon, the official exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris. The work was rejected, but it caught the attention of Edgar Degas and Auguste Renoir, who encouraged Caillebotte to exhibit with the impressionists. The painting became one of the sensations of the Second Impressionist exhibition in 1876! And the reviews were mixed: the admirers appreciated it being "beautifully truthful and accurate", the critics deemed it "unfinished, vulgar and anti-artistic", and Émile Zola denounced this work as being "photographic" and "bourgeois." Now this painting is considered to be one of the pearls of the Musée d'Orsay collection.

Paul Cézanne had his own creative method of work. He was always dissatisfied with himself and therefore worked for a very long time, and his models had to stay in one position for long hours. And the artist could leave a work before it was finished because it wasn’t perfect! So, Ambroise Vollard posed for Cézanne for 115 (!) times, but he saw his portrait. Cézanne postponed the painting to get back to it later when he "would achieve something". Well, except for he liked, "how the shirt chest is painted". Cézanne could only let his model to take a break under the force of the argument that the model would get tired and therefore become a bad poser. At the same time, the artist demanded complete silence at work: even the dog's barking could prevent him.

This is about a magnificent canvas of a mystical genre uncharacteristic for Aivazovsky. Being inspired by the biblical line "and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters", he embodied it on canvas. Pope Gregory XVI wanted to acquire the painting. Aivazovsky's studio was visited by endless processions consisting of prelates, cardinals and other high-ranking officials, but all these commissions could not find any flaws in the work that would make it unworthy of the Vatican gallery. The Pope bought the painting and awarded Aivazovsky with a golden medal. In this regard, Gogol, with whom Aivazovsky became friends in Rome, came up with a great pun: "Well done, Vania! You, a little man from the banks of the distant Neva, came to Rome and your Chaos immediately caused a chaos in the Vatican! And it's frustrating that if it had been me, a scribbler, who caused chaos in the Vatican, I would have been thumped, and Vania Aivazovsky was given a golden medal ... "