The Löwenmensch figurine or Lion man of the Hohlenstein Stadel is a very early prehistoric sculpture that was discovered in the Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave in 1939. The lion-headed figurine, alternately called (by its German names) Lö...

Phidias or Pheidias was a Greek sculptor, painter, and architect. His statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Phidias also designed the statues of the goddess Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, namely the...

The Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses are the most significant archeological excavations of the 20th century. Work is ongoing at this site, which is around 1.5 kilometers east of Emperor Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum, Lintong County, Shaanxi prov...

The Leshan Giant Buddha is a 71-metre (233 ft) tall stone statue, built during the Tang Dynasty. It is carved out of a cliff face that lies at the confluence of the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers in the southern part of Sichuan province i...

Claus Sluter (1340s in Haarlem – 1405 or 1406 in Dijon) was a Dutch sculptor. He was the most important northern European sculptor of his age and is considered a pioneer of the "northern realism" of the Early Netherlandish painting that cam...

Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for his development of linear perspective and for engineering the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplish...

Donatello (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi), master of sculpture in both marble and bronze, one of the greatest of all Italian Renaissance artists. A good deal is known about Donatello's life and career, but little is known about his chara...

Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, cryptographer and general Renaissance humanist polymath. Although he is often characterized as an "architect" exclusively, as James Beck ha...

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figu...

Isabella d'Este was marchesa of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance and a major cultural and political figure. Isabella d'Este was well-educated in her youth in Ferrara, as her voluminous correspondence reveals. T...

Michelangelo Buonarroti was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatil...

David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian artist Michelangelo. David is a 5.17-metre (17.0 ft) marble statue of the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence....

El Greco was a painter, sculptor, and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" (The Greek) was a nickname, a reference to his Greek origin. El Greco was born in Crete, which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the c...

Gianlorenzo Bernini was a sculptor, painter and architect and a formative influence as an outstanding exponent of the Italian Baroque. He was an exceptional portrait artist and owes to his father his accomplished techniques in the handling...

Anna Maria "Marie" Tussaud was a French artist known for her wax sculptures and Madame Tussauds, the wax museum she founded in London. In 1835, after 33 years touring Britain, she established her first permanent exhibition in Baker Stre...