Key Takeaways
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The Mona Lisa, The Starry Night, and The Last Supper sit at the top of most lists of the most famous paintings of all time. But fame in art comes from more than one factor.
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A painting usually gets famous for its technique, its history, or the story behind how it was made. Often, it's all three at once.
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Several of these paintings, including the Mona Lisa, American Gothic, and The Starry Night, exist today as paint by numbers kits you can paint at home.
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Bold, high-contrast paintings with simple shapes, like American Gothic, are often the easiest famous paintings to recreate on a first attempt.
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You don't need formal art training to paint a version of a masterpiece. A numbered canvas breaks the image into sections anyone can follow.
Imagine a painting so famous you could describe it without ever standing in front of it. A woman with a faint, unreadable smile. A night sky swirling over a sleepy village. A farmer and his daughter standing stiff outside a small white house. You already know these images, even without a museum visit.
That's the strange part about fame in art. It has little to do with size or technical perfection. It has to do with a story that sticks in your head, a face that seems to watch you back, or a scene too strange or too beautiful to forget. Every painting on this list earns that pull in its own way.
Here are 20 of the most famous paintings of all time, why each earned its place, and how to paint your own version of one.
Table Of Contents
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What Makes A Painting Iconic?
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The 20 Most Famous Paintings Of All Time
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The Easiest Famous Paintings To Recreate
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Your Wall Is Missing One Of These
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Frequently Asked Questions
What Makes a Painting Iconic?
A painting rarely becomes famous the moment it's finished. Three things tend to push a painting toward that kind of lasting fame.
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A technique nobody had tried before: Hokusai's use of a single deep blue pigment, or Van Gogh's thick, swirling brushwork, gave viewers something their eyes hadn't seen on canvas before.
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A story attached to the object itself: The Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 and missing for more than two years. The Night Watch survived two separate knife attacks and an acid attack. A painting with its own history tends to stay in the news, and this keeps it famous.
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A subject that still feels close to home: American Gothic shows two ordinary people standing in front of a farmhouse. That ordinariness is exactly why people still recognize it a century later.
None of this means old famous paintings are somehow better than newer ones. A piece from 1503 and a piece from the 1930s can earn the same spot on a wall for very different reasons.
The 20 Most Famous Paintings of All Time
Every painting below has hung in a major museum, sold at auction for millions, survived a theft, or ended up printed on a tote bag somewhere.
1. Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci, about 1503 to 1506)
Leonardo painted this portrait of Lisa Gherardini in Florence and kept refining it for years. That's why the sitter's expression still reads differently depending on the angle you view it from. It hangs behind bulletproof glass at the Louvre in Paris, where a theft in 1911 kept it out of public view for more than two years before it turned up again in Italy. You can paint your own version through the Mona Lisa paint by numbers kit.
2. The Starry Night (Vincent van Gogh, 1889)
Van Gogh painted this swirling night sky from memory while staying at an asylum in Saint Rémy, working from the view outside his window rather than from life. As MoMA itself notes, the painting has been part of its New York collection since 1941 and remains one of the museum's most visited works. A Starry Night paint by numbers kit lets you work through those same brushstrokes one numbered section at a time.
3. The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci, 1495 to 1498)
Painted directly onto a dining hall wall at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, this mural started deteriorating within decades. Leonardo used an experimental paint mixture instead of the standard fresco technique, and it didn't hold up the same way. Somehow, it survived a bombing in 1943 that destroyed most of the surrounding building. A Last Supper paint by numbers kit is available if you want to try the composition yourself.
4. The Scream (Edvard Munch, 1893)
Munch made several versions of this image, and the most recognized one now lives at the National Museum of Norway in Oslo. It's been stolen twice, once in 1994 and again in 2004, and recovered both times. A Scream paint by numbers kit captures the same swirling color around the figure.
5. Girl With a Pearl Earring (Johannes Vermeer, about 1665)
Vermeer painted this young woman with almost no visible background, letting the light on her earring and the turn of her head carry the whole piece. Sometimes called the Dutch Mona Lisa, it's hung at the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1902. A Girl with a Pearl Earring paint by numbers kit is one of the more popular portrait options.
6. Guernica (Pablo Picasso, 1937)
Picasso painted this enormous black, white, and gray canvas in about five weeks after learning of the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Five weeks, for something this size. It hangs at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid and remains one of the most direct antiwar statements in modern art.
7. The Birth of Venus (Sandro Botticelli, about 1485)
Botticelli's Venus, standing on a scallop shell, was one of the first large-scale mythological nudes painted in Europe since ancient times. It's thought to have been commissioned by a member of the Medici family and now hangs at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
8. Water Lilies (Claude Monet, 1897 to 1926)
Monet began this series in the garden he built at his home in Giverny and kept returning to it for nearly thirty years, right up until his death. Thirty years on one pond. Several large panels now fill a dedicated space at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. A Water Lilies paint by numbers kit recreates the soft, layered color of the pond surface.
9. The Kiss (Gustav Klimt, 1907 to 1908)
Klimt covered this embracing couple in gold leaf during what art historians call his Golden Period, drawing on Byzantine mosaics he'd seen in Italy. It's hung at the Belvedere in Vienna since the year it was finished. A Kiss paint by numbers kit is a favorite for anniversary and wedding gifts.
10. American Gothic (Grant Wood, 1930)
Wood painted his sister and his dentist standing in front of a small Iowa farmhouse. The pitchfork in the man's hand became one of the most parodied objects in American art, oddly enough. The painting won a prize at the Art Institute of Chicago's annual exhibition, and a museum patron then arranged for the piece to stay there for good. An American Gothic paint by numbers kit is a nice pick for anyone who wants bold shapes over fine detail.
11. Las Meninas (Diego Velázquez, 1656)
Velázquez placed himself in this group portrait, brush in hand, painting the royal family of Spain while appearing to look directly out at the viewer. It hangs at the Museo del Prado in Madrid and is still studied for the way it plays with perspective and who's really being watched here.
12. The Night Watch (Rembrandt, 1642)
This militia group portrait is far larger and more dramatic in its lighting than the stiff group paintings that came before it, which is why Rembrandt's reputation grew from it. The canvas has survived two separate knife attacks and an acid attack over the past century and now hangs at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
13. The Persistence of Memory (Salvador Dalí, 1931)
Dalí's melting clocks draped over a barren shoreline became one of the defining images of Surrealism almost as soon as it was shown. It's been part of the Museum of Modern Art's collection in New York since 1934.
14. Whistler's Mother (James McNeill Whistler, 1871)
Officially titled Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, this portrait of the artist's mother sitting in profile is now one of the most recognized images of American art. Funny enough, it hangs in Paris at the Musée d'Orsay, where it's been since 1891.
15. Impression, Sunrise (Claude Monet, 1872)
Monet's loose, hazy view of the harbor at Le Havre gave an entire art movement its name after a critic used the word Impressionist as an insult in a review. The painting itself hangs at the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris. An Impression Sunrise paint by numbers kit is a gentle way to try the loose brushstroke style.
16. The Great Wave Off Kanagawa (Katsushika Hokusai, about 1831)
This woodblock print features a towering wave about to swallow three small boats, with Mount Fuji sitting calmly in the background, and it was the first in Hokusai's Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji series. Copies are held by museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum. The image went on to influence painters like Van Gogh and Monet, which is a fairly wild legacy for a woodblock print.
17. Liberty Leading the People (Eugène Delacroix, 1830)
Delacroix painted this allegorical figure of Liberty carrying the French flag over fallen bodies to commemorate the July Revolution of 1830. It has hung at the Louvre in Paris since 1874 and remains one of the clearest visual symbols of political uprising in Western art.
18. The Arnolfini Portrait (Jan van Eyck, 1434)
Van Eyck's double portrait of a merchant and his wife standing in their bedroom is packed with small symbolic objects, from the single candle to the tiny convex mirror on the back wall that reflects the whole room. The National Gallery's own notes on the painting point out that Van Eyck worked with surprising speed for such a detailed piece, using his fingers and brush handles alongside the brush tip itself.
19. The Creation of Adam (Michelangelo, about 1508 to 1512)
Painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, this scene of God's outstretched hand nearly touching Adam's is probably the most reproduced image from the entire chapel ceiling. Michelangelo spent close to four years on a custom-built scaffold, standing and craning his neck backward to reach the ceiling, not lying on his back as the popular image suggests.
20. Salvator Mundi (attributed to Leonardo da Vinci)
This portrait of Christ holding a crystal orb has a history almost as dramatic as its subject. It passed through royal collections, disappeared for over a century, then resurfaced at a small auction before selling in 2017 for $450.3 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting at auction. Its current location hasn't been made public since that sale.
The Easiest Famous Paintings to Recreate
Some of the most famous paintings of all time are also some of the hardest to recreate by hand, since fine detail and blended color take practice to match. Not every painting on this list makes a good first project. A few, though, use bold outlines and flat color areas that forgive a shaky hand. That's what makes them the easy famous paintings to start with if you've never held a brush before.
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American Gothic: Flat, simple shapes and a limited color range make this one of the more forgiving portraits to recreate.
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The Starry Night: The brushwork is meant to look thick and uneven, so small imperfections fit the style instead of standing out.
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The Kiss: Large gold sections cover most of the canvas, leaving only the two faces that need careful attention.
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Girl With A Pearl Earring: One figure, soft lighting, and a plain dark background keep the composition simple.
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Impression, Sunrise: The loose, hazy brushwork used for the harbor and the sky is naturally easier to match than a tightly detailed scene.
If you'd rather work from a photo than a masterpiece, a custom paint by numbers kit turns any picture you own into the same kind of numbered canvas.
Your Wall is Missing One of These
Every painting on this list earned its place among the most famous paintings of all time for a different reason. If you have been wanting to recreate one of these, you don't need a museum, a grant, or a fine arts degree to feel some version of that. Pick your favorite from the list above and order your paint by numbers kit to start your own masterpiece by numbers tonight.
FAQs
What is the most famous painting of all time?
Most art historians and general audiences point to the Mona Lisa. Its fame comes from Leonardo's technique, its long history at the Louvre, and a 1911 theft that made global headlines and kept the painting out of public view for more than two years.
Who painted the Mona Lisa?
Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa in Florence, working on it between roughly 1503 and 1506 and continuing to adjust it in the years after.
What makes a painting famous?
A painting usually becomes famous through a combination of technical innovation, a compelling subject, and a story attached to the object itself, whether that's a theft, a controversy, or the circumstances under which it was made.
What are the most famous paintings by Van Gogh and Monet?
Van Gogh is best known for The Starry Night, painted in 1889. Monet is best known for his Water Lilies series and for Impression, Sunrise, the 1872 painting that gave Impressionism its name.
Which famous paintings are easiest to recreate?
American Gothic, The Starry Night, The Kiss, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and Impression, Sunrise all use bold shapes or loose brushwork that forgive small imperfections, which makes them good choices for a first attempt.
Where are the world's most famous paintings displayed?
Most sit in major museums, including the Louvre in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and the National Gallery in London.
What are the most famous paintings of all time in order?
There's no single official ranking, since fame in art isn't measured the same way as sales figures. Lists like this one instead group paintings by lasting cultural recognition, historical significance, and how often they show up in surveys and search results.
Can beginners paint famous artworks?
Yes. A paint by numbers version of a famous painting removes the need to mix colors or draw the composition freehand, so someone who's never painted before can still finish a recognizable version of the piece.
What are good famous paintings for a paint by numbers?
Portraits and paintings with strong outlines, such as American Gothic, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and The Kiss, tend to translate well into a numbered canvas format.
How can I paint my own version of a famous masterpiece?
Pick a kit based on a painting you already like, work through it one numbered section at a time, and let each layer dry before moving to the next. A finished canvas usually takes a few evenings to a couple of weeks depending on its size and detail level.
