When Adolf Hitler seized power, his ambition went far beyond conquering territories – he wanted to rewrite the very soul of German culture. Modern styles like Expressionism, Dadaism, Cubism and Surrealism were stamped as “degenerate” and hauled from museums, burned in bonfires, or sold off to fund the Reich. Below we dive into ten daring works art that the Nazis tried to erase, yet survived to tell their own rebellious tales.

Why These Works Art Matter

Each of these paintings not only showcases a bold artistic vision, but also carries a dramatic backstory of exile, confiscation, and sometimes miraculous recovery. By tracing their journeys, we glimpse the resilience of creators and the stubborn endurance of art against tyranny.

10 Moon Over a Mountain Lake Max Beckmann

Max Beckmann, a leading Expressionist, built his reputation on bold, distorted figures that reflected his harrowing World War I experiences. Before the Nazis rose, he enjoyed acclaim and even earned awards for his paintings. But once Hitler’s regime took over, Beckmann was stripped of his teaching post at Frankfurt’s Stadel Art School, and over 500 of his works vanished from German museums.

Fleeing to Amsterdam and later the United States, Beckmann escaped the worst of the purge. Yet some of his pieces still ended up in the infamous 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition. In 2012, a trove of his work was uncovered in a Munich apartment once filled with looted art. While the watercolor Moon Over a Mountain Lake wasn’t among the recovered pieces, it had been seized from Berlin’s National Gallery during the war and now hangs in the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich.

9 Bathers With a Turtle Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse, the pioneer of Fauvism, delighted in wild brushstrokes and vivid, unrealistic colors—exactly the kind of art that made the Nazis nervous. To raise foreign currency, the regime often dumped seized works at low‑price auctions. In 1939, a newlywed Joseph Pulitzer Jr. stumbled upon one such auction in Lucerne, Switzerland. With help from Matisse’s son Pierre, he snapped up the painting for $2,400, calling it “the most creative works of then‑existing artists of that period.”

Matisse was allowed to keep showing his art in Paris only after swearing an oath declaring his “Aryan” status, a compromise he later lamented in a letter to his son, saying he would feel like a deserter if he fled.

8 The Absinthe Drinker Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso’s Cubist and abstract experiments made him a prime target for Nazi ridicule. While he stayed in occupied Paris, he kept a low profile and didn’t exhibit during the war. His iconic Guernica openly condemned both warfare and the Third Reich, a fact the Nazis surely noted.

The painting featured here, The Absinthe Drinker (also known as Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto), belongs to Picasso’s melancholic Blue Period. It resurfaced in 2006 when Andrew Lloyd Webber announced a charity auction. Descendants of the former owner, Paul von Mendelssohn‑Bartholdy, argued the work had been sold under duress during the Nazi era. After a protracted dispute, the painting was sold to an anonymous buyer in 2010, with the matter settled out of court.

7 Reclining Nude Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt’s sensual and erotic style clashed sharply with Nazi ideals, even though he died in 1918. Two of his female nudes, seized from the Kunsthalle Mannheim, now sit in the Freie Universität Berlin database, their whereabouts unknown.

The tragedy deepens with the story of Adele Bloch‑Bauer, a Viennese socialite who modeled for Klimt’s most famous work, The Kiss. After her death, her husband Ferdinand kept her portraits as a memorial. When the Nazis forced the Jewish family to flee, the paintings were looted. Decades later, an Austrian arbitration panel ordered the return of five works, including the two portraits of Adele, to her niece Maria Altmann. One now decorates New York’s Neue Galerie, the other resides at the Museum of Modern Art.

6 Self‑Portrait Dedicated To Paul Gauguin Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh’s swirling, expressive style landed him squarely in the Nazis’ crosshairs. His self‑portrait, painted on a sea‑foam background, was donated to Munich’s Neue Staatsgalerie in 1919. Two decades later, the Nazis lifted it from the museum walls and auctioned it in Lucerne to fund the Reich.

Collector Maurice Wertheim purchased the work and later bequeathed it to the Harvard Art Museums. Because it was taken from a state‑run institution, it isn’t legally required to be restituted. Ironically, the seizure may have saved it; the museum was bombed later, destroying many other works, while this van Gogh survived.

5 The War Cripples Otto Dix

Otto Dix’s harrowing critique of war made Dadaism his most hated target in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” where Dadaists were described as the “degenerate excess of insane and depraved humans.” Dix’s painting The War Cripples resembles a collage, mocking the military, the public’s morbid fascination, and the wounded veterans themselves.

Featured in the 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition, the work vanished after the show and is presumed destroyed, a stark reminder of the regime’s ruthless cultural cleansing.

4 Color Order Hans Richter

Hans Richter, a Dadaist who’d fought in World War I and later became partially paralyzed, believed artists must oppose war and champion revolution. His abstract studies in color and composition, plus pioneering abstract films like Rhythmus 21, earned him Nazi ire.

His piece Farbenordnung (“Color Order”) was displayed in the Entartete Kunst exhibition after being seized from the Provincial Museum in Hannover. The painting was ultimately destroyed, and Richter escaped to the United States in 1941.

3 Winter Garden Paul Klee

Paul Klee, a rare Jewish modernist, blended Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstraction. Teaching at the Düsseldorf Academy from 1931‑1933, he fell victim to a Nazi newspaper that exposed his Jewish heritage. The Gestapo searched his home, and Klee was dismissed.

In response, Klee painted Struck from the List, depicting a faceless figure with a black “X” across its face. He and his family fled to Switzerland. Meanwhile, his work Winter Garden was confiscated from the Civic Museum of Arts and Crafts in Halle and later destroyed after being displayed in the Degenerate Art show.

2 La Belle Jardinière Max Ernst

Max Ernst, another Dadaist, found himself trapped in Paris as an “undesirable foreigner” when World II erupted. After friends intervened, he was briefly released, only to be arrested again by the Gestapo after the German invasion. He eventually escaped to America with help from patron Peggy Guggenheim.

Ernst’s daring works often provoked the Nazis. In La Belle Jardinière (also called Creation of Eve), he painted a nude Eve with a dove perched provocatively, backed by a fruit‑shaped line drawing. The painting was displayed at the Degenerate Art exhibition, and a photo captures Hitler walking past it. Unfortunately, records of the piece vanished after the show, suggesting it was likely destroyed.

1 Self‑Portrait As A Soldier Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, a founding member of the avant‑garde group “The Bridge,” battled both physical and mental ailments worsened by his World I service. His 1915 masterpiece Self‑Portrait As A Soldier shows him in uniform, clutching a stump where his right hand once was, set against a studio backdrop with a nude model.

When the Nazis seized power in 1933, they condemned Kirchner’s abstract style, forcing him out of the Prussian Academy of the Arts. Over 600 of his works were removed from German museums, and at least 32 appeared in the Degenerate Art exhibition. Overwhelmed, Kirchner took his own life in 1938.

The notion of “what could have been” haunts every creative mind, and nowhere is that feeling more palpable than when we examine ten famous works that were left hanging in mid‑air. From canvases that stopped half‑painted to symphonies that never reached their final chord, each piece offers a tantalizing glimpse into an artist’s process, ambition, and sometimes tragic fate. Join us on a whirlwind tour of these legendary unfinished creations, and discover why they continue to fascinate scholars and art lovers alike.

What Makes These 10 Famous Works So Intriguing

10 St. Jerome In The Wilderness

Leonardo da Vinci often saw himself more as an inventive engineer than as a conventional painter, a mindset that explains why so few of his pictures ever reached a polished finish. One of the most striking examples of his unfinished output is St. Jerome in the Wilderness, a half‑realized canvas that still manages to captivate viewers with its rarity and the insight it offers into Leonardo’s experimental techniques.

Created around 1480, the work depicts the hermit saint perched amid a stark, rocky landscape, clutching a stone that hints at his practice of self‑mortification. Scholars believe the painting lingered in Leonardo’s own studio until his death, after which its trail becomes hazy.

The earliest documented reference appears in the 19th‑century will of Swiss painter Angelica Kauffman. After vanishing for a time, the piece resurfaced in the collection of Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Napoleon’s uncle, who discovered that the canvas had been sliced into five fragments. Fesch painstakingly reassembled the pieces, restoring the work to a viewable state.

Later, Pope Pius IX acquired the reunited painting for the Vatican’s Pinacoteca, where it now hangs as a testament to both the fragility and resilience of art. It’s astonishing that this rare masterpiece survived at all, and even in its incomplete form it remains a dazzling achievement.

9 Symphony No. 8 In B Minor

Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor, forever known as the “Unfinished Symphony,” consists of just two fully realized movements: an Allegro moderato and an Andante con moto. Sketches for a third movement were later uncovered, and the entr’acte from his incidental music to Rosamunde appears to have been drawn from what might have been the final movement.

In 1822, the 25‑year‑old Schubert began work on this enigmatic symphony. The following year he earned an honorary degree from the Graz Music Society and handed his symphonic sketch to his friend Anselm Huttenbrenner.

Huttenbrenner, fearing that the piece was incomplete, kept the manuscript hidden for decades. It wasn’t until 1865 that he finally delivered the score to the Vienna Music Association, where the “Unfinished Symphony” received its inaugural performance.

Tragically, Schubert never heard his own work performed; he passed away in 1828 at the age of 31, leaving the world to wonder how the symphony might have concluded.

8 Portrait Of Ria Munk III

This canvas represents the third and final attempt in a series of portraits Gustav Klimt was commissioned to create for the Munk family, depicting their daughter Ria. After a painful breakup in late 1911, Ria took her own life with a gunshot to the chest. Her mother, grieving, asked Klimt to paint a death‑bed portrait. The first two attempts were rejected, and the third remained unfinished.

Even in its incomplete state, the painting offers a rare window into Klimt’s working method. The portrait shows Ria turned slightly, smiling toward the viewer. While her face and surrounding features are fully rendered, the dress and floor are only sketched in charcoal, leaving a stark contrast between finished and unfinished areas.

The piece reveals Klimt’s spontaneous, impulsive style—he often painted directly onto the canvas without extensive preparatory drawings. After a stint at the Lentos Museum, the work was returned to the heirs of Ria’s mother and later sold in 2010 for roughly $27.8 million.

7 Kubla Khan

Under the influence of laudanum—a pain‑relieving opiate—Samuel Taylor Coleridge produced the 54‑line fragment known as “Kubla Khan,” published in 1816. Coleridge claimed the poem arrived to him in a vivid, drug‑induced dream, but upon waking he could only recall a portion of the original, sprawling composition.

In the surviving verses, Coleridge conjures a fantastical landscape of Xanadu, where the mighty Kubla Khan commands a pleasure dome of ice‑caverns bathed in sunlight. The poem juxtaposes stark contrasts—cold and warmth, order and chaos—reflecting a deeper meditation on the nature of human genius.

6 Portrait Of George Washington

Gilbert Stuart, a prolific portraitist, produced over a hundred likenesses of President George Washington. While his early “Vaughan” portrait is well‑known, the most celebrated piece in the series is the so‑called Athenaeum portrait, begun in 1796 at the request of Washington’s wife, Martha.

The portrait remained unfinished, prompting Stuart to ask the President if he might retain the canvas to aid future works. More than 75 replicas were later produced, and after Stuart’s death in 1828 the unfinished original was purchased by the Boston Athenaeum, earning the moniker “Athenaeum portrait.”

5 David‑Apollo

This marble piece is commonly labeled “David‑Apollo” because scholars cannot agree on whether the youthful figure represents the biblical David or the mythic Apollo. The sculpture’s chisel marks and twisting pose hint at both identities, leaving the true subject forever ambiguous.

Commissioned in 1530 for Baccio Valori, the governor of Florence, the work was likely abandoned by Michelangelo before his move to Rome, possibly for artistic reasons.

It is believed the marble initially began as a representation of David, but Michelangelo later attempted to transform it into Apollo, ultimately leaving the statue unfinished. The mystery surrounding its identity ensures its enduring fascination.

4 The Mysterious Stranger

By the time Mark Twain embarked on The Mysterious Stranger, he was celebrated for his realistic narratives, making his foray into supernatural fiction all the more surprising. Twain labored on the novel intermittently for roughly a decade, but left it incomplete when he died in 1910.

Six years after Twain’s passing, editors released a version of the story, yet scholars in the 1960s uncovered substantial alterations that diverged from Twain’s original intent. These editorial changes had reshaped the narrative considerably.

A faithful edition, based directly on Twain’s manuscript, finally emerged in 1969. Despite its unfinished status, the work stands as a testament to Twain’s literary brilliance and his willingness to explore the uncanny.

3 The Death Of Marat

Amid the turmoil of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror in 1793, Jacques‑Louis David painted a memorial to his friend, the murdered publisher Jean Marat. The composition portrays Marat in a dramatic, idealized pose, his head heavy on his shoulder, a blood‑stained knife lying nearby.

David, a fervent supporter of revolutionary ideals, was commissioned by Robespierre to create the piece. However, the painting was later returned to David, and it now resides in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

2 Unfinished Portrait Of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Elizabeth Shoumatoff, a Russian‑American portraitist, counted among her subjects the nation’s most prominent families—the Woodruffs, du Ponts, and Firestones. Yet her most renowned commission was the portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

When they first met, Roosevelt was impressed by Shoumatoff’s skill and promptly hired her to paint his likeness for the White House. Unfortunately, his worsening health forced a postponement of their subsequent session.

Undeterred, Shoumatoff traveled to Warm Springs, Georgia, where Roosevelt agreed to sit for a portrait outdoors. As she was about to finish her day’s work, the President collapsed in his chair, lost consciousness, and died a few hours later.

The incomplete canvas, now displayed at the Little White House where he passed, captures the final days of a pivotal leader and remains a poignant reminder of an unfinished vision.

1 Requiem In D Minor

Perhaps no unfinished masterpiece is as haunting as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, composed in 1791 and left incomplete at his death. A famous painting shows Mozart laboring over the piece on his deathbed, underscoring both his devotion and the toll it took on his health.

The Requiem was commissioned by Count Franz von Walsegg‑Stuppach, who intended to pass the work off as his own composition—a practice he had employed with other commissions.

Mozart, plagued by debilitating fevers, worked on the composition whenever his strength allowed. At his passing, only the Introit was fully finished; preliminary sketches existed for the Kyrie, Sequence, and Offertorium, while the Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and Communio remained untouched.

Today, the fragmentary masterpiece stands as a testament to Mozart’s genius and the tragic circumstances that cut his final masterpiece short.

The phrase 10 prehistoric works might sound like a museum brochure, but it actually unlocks a thrilling adventure through time. From stone tablets etched by hunter‑gatherers to massive stone circles that still baffle scientists, each piece tells a vivid story about how our ancestors imagined, celebrated, and recorded their world. In this lively tour we’ll wander through caves, deserts, and ancient burial grounds, uncovering the hidden narratives behind each masterpiece while keeping the tone light, chatty, and authoritative.

Why These 10 Prehistoric Works Matter

Every artifact on this list is a snapshot of the human mind at work before the invention of writing. They prove that long before canvases and galleries, early peoples were already experimenting with symbolism, religious expression, and pure aesthetic pleasure. By examining these ten creations, we gain insight into the origins of art, spirituality, and the universal urge to leave a mark for future eyes.

10 Apollo 11 Stones

The Apollo 11 Stones comprise a small collection of seven carvings—originally six, with two later split apart—that portray a variety of animal figures. Dated to roughly 25,000 BC, these stones are a striking illustration of early symbolic thought. Their age places them at a pivotal moment when Homo sapiens were beginning to think abstractly, using stone as a canvas to record daily life and mythic creatures for posterity.

Discovered deep within Namibia’s Apollo 11 Cave, the stones bear charcoal, ochre, and other pigments, offering a vivid glimpse into Paleolithic creativity. The moniker “Apollo 11” stems from the fact that archaeologists announced their find just as the historic moon landing was being broadcast worldwide. Within the same cavern, evidence of a staggering 100,000 years of continuous human occupation was uncovered, confirming that the term “cave man” describes a very real, long‑standing presence. These stones hold the distinction of being the oldest known representational art from Africa.

9 Venus Of Willendorf

The Venus of Willendorf is a small limestone figurine whose estimated age ranges between 28,000 BC and 25,000 BC, situating it squarely in the Upper Paleolithic era. This iconic statuette depicts a voluptuous, nude female form, a likely embodiment of fertility or a goddess of childbirth. Variants of the Venus appear across Europe, dating as late as 22,000 BC, suggesting a widespread cultural motif centered on the life‑giving capabilities of women.

Life in the Paleolithic was brutally unforgiving; many mothers perished during childbirth, a somber reality reflected in the intense focus on the figurine’s breasts and pubic region. The artist gave the figure minimal attention to limbs or musculature, highlighting the cultural emphasis on reproductive attributes. Determining its exact age is challenging because “prehistoric” implies no written records; scientists rely on radiocarbon dating, comparative analysis, and contextual clues to pin down its creation.

8 Lion Man

If the Egyptian Sphinx feels like the pinnacle of hybrid mythic art, the Lion Man predates it by millennia. Carved from a mammoth’s tusk, this sculpture dates between 35,000 BC and 40,000 BC, making it one of the oldest known examples of anthropomorphic art. The figure combines a human torso with a lion’s head, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the nascent religious imagination of Upper‑Paleolithic peoples.

Standing just over 31 cm tall, the piece was fashioned using simple flint tools during a frigid ice‑age climate. Discovered in 1939 alongside a trove of other artifacts, the Lion Man demonstrates that early humans could conceive of supernatural beings without any formal writing system. Its ivory medium showcases the resilience and artistic ambition of people who survived harsh glacial conditions while still producing intricate, expressive works.

7 Jericho Skull

The Jericho Skull is far more than a simple bone; it is an early three‑dimensional portrait crafted around 7,200 BC during the Neolithic era. The skull was plastered and carefully modeled to resemble a living human face, with shells set into the eye sockets to create a striking white‑eyed effect. This sophisticated treatment makes it one of the earliest known portrait sculptures.

Modern CT‑scanning technology has allowed researchers to reconstruct the individual’s facial features, revealing a man who lived roughly 9,200 years ago and endured a broken nose and a traumatic head injury sustained shortly after birth. The artifact resides today in the British Museum, having been unearthed in the ancient settlement of Jericho, a site that boasts continuous habitation dating back to around 9,000 BC. Its intricate craftsmanship underscores the Neolithic preoccupation with ancestor veneration and personal identity.

6 Anthropomorphic Stele

The anthropomorphic stele originates from the ancient city of Ha’il in present‑day Saudi Arabia. This free‑standing stone sculpture, dated between the sixth and fourth millennia BC, depicts a human figure standing upright, its face bearing a solemn, almost enigmatic expression. Similar monoliths have been discovered throughout the Arabian Peninsula, suggesting a regional artistic tradition.

Created by nomadic hunter‑gatherer groups before the rise of Islam, these peoples inhabited a landscape that resembled a savanna rather than today’s arid desert. Climate fluctuations forced them to move frequently in search of resources. While the exact purpose of the stele remains uncertain, its solemn visage hints at a religious or funerary role, possibly marking a burial site or serving as a spiritual marker for the community.

5 Cong

The cong are exquisite jade artifacts hailing from the Liangzhu culture of Neolithic China, roughly the third millennium BC. These objects feature a cylindrical core surrounded by a square‑rimmed outer band, merging circular and rectangular geometry in a single piece. Their polished surfaces and precise angles reflect the sophisticated tool‑making abilities of the Liangzhu people.

Often paired with complementary jade discs called bi, the cong were likely employed in ceremonial contexts, perhaps as grave goods or ritual implements. Although their precise symbolic meaning remains debated, the labor‑intensive process required to fashion each piece underscores their cultural significance and the reverence ancient Chinese placed on jade as a material of spiritual power.

4 The Hall Of The Bulls

The Hall of the Bulls occupies a spectacular chamber within France’s Lascaux cave system, near the village of Montignac. This section showcases some of the most detailed and vivid Paleolithic animal paintings ever discovered, featuring bison, aurochs, and other majestic creatures rendered with astonishing realism.

Created between 16,000 BC and 14,000 BC, the mural spans a massive 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) in width, dwarfing typical cave art panels. Scholars regard the Hall as the Paleolithic equivalent of the Sistine Chapel, a testament to the artists’ dedication, planning, and deep connection to the natural world they inhabited. Despite living short, arduous lives, these early humans managed to allocate time and resources to celebrate the beauty and power of the animals that sustained them.

3 Prehistoric Tattoos

Tattooing ranks among humanity’s oldest artistic expressions, stretching back to the Neolithic era and perhaps even earlier. Because skin deteriorates after death, many ancient tattoos are lost to time, but those preserved on mummified remains and bog bodies reveal a rich tradition of body art with deep cultural and religious roots.

A famous example is Ötzi the Iceman, who perished in the Alpine region around 3,300 BC. His body bears a series of deliberate incisions, likely made using a mixture of blood and pigment as ink. These markings suggest a ritualistic purpose, perhaps related to healing or protection. The painstaking effort required to create tattoos without modern tools underscores the significance early peoples placed on marking the skin as a canvas.

2 Stonehenge

Stonehenge stands as one of the most recognizable prehistoric monuments on the planet. This massive stone circle, constructed beginning around 3,000 BC, functioned as a ceremonial and possibly astronomical site for Neolithic peoples of Britain.

The earliest activity at the location dates to 8,000‑7,000 BC, when early settlers erected wooden posts and dug surrounding ditches. Over subsequent millennia, successive generations raised the iconic sarsen and bluestone monoliths, painstakingly shaping each slab with hammer blows to achieve a smooth surface. The site also served as a burial ground, with numerous interments discovered within its surrounding earthworks, highlighting its enduring spiritual importance.

1 Bhimbetka Cupules

The Bhimbetka cupules, found in the Indian rock‑shelter complex of Bhimbetka, are modest hemispherical depressions carved into stone. While the surrounding cave paintings date to around 30,000 BC, the cupules themselves have been dated to at least 290,000 BC, with some scholars proposing ages as ancient as 700,000 BC—potentially predating Homo sapiens altogether.

This extraordinary site encapsulates hundreds of thousands of years of human presence, offering shelter, cooking spaces, and a canvas for artistic expression. The sheer longevity of the markings underscores the continuity of human creativity, from the earliest hominin markings to the sophisticated mural art of later prehistoric cultures. Together, the cupules and paintings illustrate the deep, unbroken thread of imagination that runs through our species.

The world of fine art isn’t just about brushstrokes and brilliance; it’s also a stage for drama, protest, and sometimes outright destruction. In this roundup of 10 great works of art that have been assaulted by vandals, we’ll travel from London’s National Gallery to a Sotheby’s auction house, meeting suffragettes, drunken visitors, and even a mischievous street‑artist who turned an auction into a performance. Each piece tells a tale of damage and, more importantly, of painstaking restoration.

10 Great Works of Art Vandalized

In the spring of 1914, the Rokeby Venus fell victim to a dramatic protest when suffragette Mary Richardson brandished a meat cleaver inside the National Gallery in London, carving at least five deep gashes into the canvas. Her motive was two‑fold: to draw attention to the imprisonment of Emmeline Pankhurst and to condemn the way male visitors ogled the nude figure.

Richardson later explained that the attack was not merely a political stunt but also a rebuke of the voyeuristic gaze that lingered on the painting’s sensuous back view. She argued that men stared at the work with an objectifying stare, turning the piece into a spectacle of male desire.

The painting’s most striking feature—the woman’s curvaceous posterior, described by some as possessing an uncanny three‑dimensional quality—has historically invited the viewer’s eye to linger, amplifying the sense of being watched. The mirrored composition, in which the subject looks back at us, adds a layer of uncomfortable self‑awareness for onlookers.

After the assault, expert conservators set to work, and today only the faintest trace of the cleaver’s wounds remains, a testament to both the painting’s resilience and the skill of modern restoration.

9 The Fall Of The Damned

Peter Paul Rubens’ colossal canvas The Fall Of The Damned, completed in 1620, captures the chaotic descent of rebel angels from heaven into the infernal abyss, a scene brimming with muscular figures and dramatic chiaroscuro. Measuring nearly three metres tall, the painting overwhelms viewers with its sheer scale and the raw emotion of its tormented subjects.

In 1959, a disgruntled individual drenched the work in acid, claiming the corrosive liquid “relieves one from the work of destruction,” a twisted rationale akin to saying a gun eases the act of shooting. The acid ate through layers of pigment, leaving irreversible scars on the masterpiece.

Restorers have painstakingly consulted Rubens’ original sketches to guide their efforts, yet the corrosive damage proved permanent in several sections, forever altering the visual narrative of the piece.

8 Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic portrait has weathered more than its share of assaults. In 1956, the painting suffered two separate attacks: a splash of acid and a thrown rock, both of which left only superficial marks thanks to the protective glass that had already been installed.

More recently, a Russian woman denied French citizenship hurled an empty cup at the canvas. The Louvre’s bullet‑proof glass effortlessly deflected the projectile, sparing the world’s most valuable painting from any real harm.

7 Ivan The Terrible And His Son

Ilya Repin’s haunting tableau Ivan The Terrible And His Son portrays the infamous tsar cradling his mortally wounded heir, a scene that has long sparked controversy in Russia. In May 2018, a heavily intoxicated visitor seized a metal barrier pole and barreled through the protective glass, rending the canvas with a violent swipe.

Fortunately, the pole missed the central figures, tearing only a peripheral portion of the work. The attacker later confessed that a binge of vodka left him overwhelmed and compelled to act.

This was not the first assault on Repin’s masterpiece; in 1913, the artist himself repaired a slashing inflicted by an earlier vandal, a testament to the painting’s turbulent history.

Restoration experts now face the daunting task of mending the 2018 damage, a process expected to span several years before the canvas can be fully displayed again.

6 La Berceuse

Just days before he famously sliced off his own ear, Vincent van Gogh began work on La Berceuse, a tender depiction of a woman in a rocking chair, gently holding a rope that would lull an unseen child. Van Gogh’s obsessive devotion to the piece continued even after his hospitalization, during which he reportedly sang lullabies to the imagined infant.

The painting exists in five versions, yet one of these was brutally slashed three times by a self‑styled “artist” while on loan to Amsterdam’s Municipal Museum. The motives behind the attack remain a mystery.

Van Gogh’s own oeuvre has not been immune to vandalism; in 1978, a visitor at the Van Gogh Museum carved a massive “X” across his famed Self‑Portrait with Grey Felt Hat. Though the damage is still visible from certain angles, careful restoration has mitigated the worst of it.

The perpetrator behind the 1960s slashing was deemed mentally unstable and subsequently confined to a psychiatric institution.

5 Argenteuil Basin With A Single Sailboat

In 2012, a visitor named Andrew Shannon stormed the National Gallery of Ireland and delivered a powerful fist‑punch to Claude Monet’s serene Argenteuil Basin With A Single Sailboat. The 1874 masterpiece, valued at roughly $10 million, suffered a deep gouge that left the canvas visibly scarred.

Shannon later claimed his violent act was a form of retaliation against the state, though his exact reasoning remained vague. The damage was severe enough to require an 18‑month restoration campaign.

Monet himself was no stranger to self‑destruction; in 1908 he deliberately destroyed several of his own paintings shortly before they were to be exhibited, dissatisfied with the results.

After a year and a half of meticulous work, conservators succeeded in restoring the work to a condition that closely resembles its original luminous quality.

4 The Night Watch

Rembrandt’s 1642 masterpiece The Night Watch showcases a bustling militia company bathed in dramatic light and shadow. In 1975, a man armed with a bread knife stormed the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, slashing the canvas more than a dozen times, primarily across its lower half.

The assailant, who later claimed he acted “for the Lord,” also managed to rip a sizeable piece of canvas from the centre of the composition while fending off a security guard with his other hand. His mental health history suggested a deeper psychological motive.

In an unprecedented move, the museum opted to conduct the restoration publicly, allowing visitors to watch the painstaking process unfold within the gallery itself. Work began in July 2019, marking the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death.

3 Guernica

Pablo Picasso’s monumental anti‑war canvas Guernica was defaced in 1974 when activist Tony Shafrazi spray‑painted the bold slogan “Kill Lies All” across its surface while the work was on loan to MoMA. The red graffiti stretched roughly a foot high, starkly contrasting with the monochrome palette.

When confronted, Shafrazi declared, “I’m an artist, and I wanted to tell the truth,” explaining that his act was a reaction to the pardoning of a U.S. officer involved in the My Lai massacre.

Quickly, museum staff sealed the room and enlisted restoration specialists who, thanks to the protective varnish, were able to wipe away the spray paint within an hour, leaving the original painting essentially untouched.

2 The Virgin And Child With St. Anne And St. John The Baptist

Leonardo da Vinci’s charcoal and chalk drawing, known as The Burlington House Cartoon, dates to around 1510 and serves as a preparatory study for a lost painting. Its delicate medium makes it exceptionally vulnerable.

In 1987, gunman Robert Cambridge fired a sawed‑off shotgun from a distance of just over two metres, blasting a 15‑centimetre hole through the Virgin’s flowing dress. He later claimed the act was a protest against Britain’s political, social, and economic climate.

Cambridge concealed the weapon beneath his coat, striking the protective glass before the projectile shattered the paper beneath. Though the damage was severe, conservators painstakingly gathered the minuscule fragments and reassembled them, rendering the wound virtually invisible.

The shooter was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to a mental health facility, while the drawing, valued at $35 million at the time, returned to display after meticulous restoration.

1 Girl With Balloon (Love Is In The Bin)

Created in 2004, Banksy’s iconic Girl With Balloon arrived at a Sotheby’s auction encased in a heavy, ornate frame. The frame concealed a built‑in shredding device, a twist that would later become the work’s most infamous moment.

When the hammer fell on the $1.3 million piece in October 2018, someone onstage flipped the switch, activating the shredder. The canvas cascaded through the frame, and roughly two‑thirds of the image were instantly torn apart.

According to Banksy, a mechanical malfunction halted the shredder mid‑action, leaving the remainder of the work draped like a shredded fringe. The piece was promptly renamed Love Is In The Bin and, paradoxically, its value surged.

The new owner, unfazed by the partial destruction, embraced the altered artwork and completed the purchase, while Sotheby’s spokesperson quipped that the act had created a brand‑new work rather than merely destroying one.

When it comes to the world of fine art, the phrase 10 ridiculous ways might sound like hyperbole—until you read the bizarre mishaps that have actually happened. Humanity’s fascination with fragile masterpieces is oddly paradoxical: we adore them, yet we’re not always the best caretakers. Museums, collectors, and even casual visitors have learned the hard way that protecting art is a never‑ending battle against the unexpected, and the stories below prove just how absurd that battle can become.

10 Mistaken for Trash

Believe it or not, one of the most frequent blunders involves modern pieces being tossed as if they were yesterday’s rubbish. Clean‑up crews occasionally mistake avant‑garde installations for waste, and the financial fallout can be surprisingly steep.

Take the 2014 incident in southern Italy: a gallery cleaner, assuming a set of works by Sala Murat were discarded junk, gathered newspaper, cardboard, and even cookie fragments strewn across the floor and hauled them away. By the time security realized the pieces were missing, the refuse collectors had already carted them off. Luckily, the cleaning firm’s insurance covered the estimated €10,000 value.

A similar fate befell a 2001 installation by Damien Hirst, composed of beer bottles, coffee cups, and ashtrays, when a London gallery’s staff inadvertently threw it away. In 2004, German artist Gustav Metzger suffered the same fate when a bag of paper and cardboard he’d designed was mistakenly discarded.

9 Eaten by Visitor

Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan proved that a simple concept can fetch a fortune: a single‑word title, “Comedian,” paired with a banana duct‑taped to a wall sold for $120,000 in 2019. Unfortunately, the very fruit that made the piece famous also made it vulnerable to consumption.

The first bite came from a performance artist in Miami later that year, who, after the sale, peeled and ate the banana in front of stunned onlookers. The second episode unfolded at Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art, where a hungry South Korean student named Noh Huyn‑soo, having skipped breakfast, snatched the banana, devoured it, and then re‑taped the peel back onto the wall. The museum opted not to claim damages, noting that the banana was replaced regularly anyway.

8 Punched by Visitor

Balancing accessibility with preservation is a tightrope walk for curators. In 2015, the Huashan 1914 Gallery in Taipei faced a painful lesson when a schoolboy, engrossed in his tour guide’s narration, tripped over a barrier and instinctively thrust his fist through a 17th‑century painting valued at $1.5 million.

The accidental punch not only pierced the canvas but also sent his drink spilling across the artwork. The curator, who had granted close proximity to guests, was momentarily speechless as the scene unfolded. Fortunately, the painting—Paolo Porpora’s “Flowers”—was later restored by experts, and the boy’s family faced no financial repercussions.

This episode highlighted the fine line between immersive experiences and the risk of unintentional damage to priceless works.

7 Tapped by Visitor (Who Should Have Known Better)

While a clumsy visitor is one thing, a collector who deliberately mishandles a sculpture is another. In 2023, an unnamed buyer in Miami decided to test the durability of Jeff Koons’ iconic Balloon Dog by tapping it—despite countless “Do Not Touch” signs.

The careless tap caused the sculpture, valued at $42,000, to topple from its plinth and shatter into countless fragments. The gallery fell silent as onlookers gathered around the wreckage. Ironically, the destruction turned the piece into an even rarer collector’s item; a limited‑edition work became scarcer, and a bidder even offered to purchase the broken shards.

It’s a stark reminder that even celebrated contemporary artworks can become victims of their own fame when admirers ignore basic precautions.

6 Elbowed by Owner

Casino mogul Steve Wynn, known for his flamboyant gestures, once unintentionally sabotaged a masterpiece he owned. While showcasing Picasso’s “Le Rêve” to a circle of friends in 2006, Wynn’s peripheral‑vision problem led him to stand too close to the canvas.

Mid‑explanation, his elbow collided with the painting, producing a tearing sound as a small hole appeared in the lower‑right corner. The incident, quickly dubbed “The $40‑Million Elbow,” threatened a pending $139 million sale—the would‑be record price for a work of art.

Fortunately, the damage was minor enough to be repaired, and the painting ultimately sold for $155 million to the same buyer, turning a potential disaster into a historic transaction.

5 Shredded by Artist

British street‑artist Banksy is famed for his subversive gestures, and in 2018 he took self‑destruction to a new level at Sotheby’s. One of his celebrated pieces—a spray‑painted girl reaching for a heart‑shaped balloon—was framed in an ornate golden case that looked like a traditional masterpiece.

When the auctioneer announced a $1.4 million winning bid, the frame suddenly gave way, revealing a concealed shredder at its base. The canvas began to feed into the machine, emerging as long, thin ribbons that drifted away, effectively destroying the artwork before the buyer’s eyes.

Banksy’s pre‑installed device, reportedly set up years earlier, turned the auction into a performance, underscoring his critique of the commodification of art.

4 Destroyed by Christopher Walken

Banksy’s penchant for self‑destruction resurfaced in 2021 during a BBC comedy‑drama starring Christopher Walken. The series, penned by Stephen Merchant, featured a scene where a rat wielding a spray can—painted in Banksy’s signature stenciled style—decorated a wall.

Walken’s character, a con‑man named Frank, was instructed by his supervisor to paint over all graffiti. Obliging, he covered the authentic Banksy piece, effectively erasing it. The artwork had been created specifically for the show, making its obliteration a deliberate, if controversial, act.

This incident sparked debate about the value of temporary art and the ethics of destroying a work at the behest of a director.

3 Burned Because Churchill Hated It

In 1954, celebrated British painter Graham Sutherland was commissioned to create a portrait of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill for the latter’s 80th birthday. The resulting canvas, a stark, modern interpretation, was intended for display in the Houses of Parliament.

Sutherland, refusing to let Churchill preview the piece, painted him as a “magnificent ruin,” a depiction that deeply offended the former Prime Minister. At the unveiling, Churchill dismissed the work as “a remarkable example of modern art” and removed it from public view, keeping it at his home.

Later, Churchill’s wife arranged for the portrait to be secretly destroyed. In the dead of night, a private secretary and his brother slipped the painting out of the cellar and set it ablaze, erasing the controversial work forever.

2 Defaced by Bored Security Guard (on His First Day)

Security personnel are hired to protect, not vandalize, but boredom can lead to unexpected outcomes. In 2022, a newly hired guard at a Moscow abstract‑art exhibition grew weary and decided to give the faceless figures in Anna Leporskaya’s painting a set of eyes.

Armed with a ballpoint pen, he doodled four circles onto the canvas, effectively altering the artwork’s intent. The guard’s prank earned him immediate termination, and the painting—valued at nearly $900,000—was sent to professional restorers.

Restoration experts confirmed the damage was reversible, but the repair cost ran into the low‑four‑figure range, highlighting the hidden expenses of even minor defacements.

1 Struck by Lightning

Nature can be an unpredictable adversary for art, as demonstrated in 2021 when a mural honoring George Floyd in Toledo, Ohio, was struck by a bolt of lightning. The mural, painted just a year earlier by local artist David Ross, depicted a powerful tribute to the victim of police brutality.

The lightning strike caused the wall supporting the mural to collapse, reducing the artwork to rubble. Although the building itself survived, the mural was irreparably damaged.

Ross announced plans to repaint the piece in a more visible location, and the city’s art council pledged to fund its replacement, ensuring the message endures despite the electrical mishap.

With the world stuck at home, video‑calling apps have turned into a daily lifeline. 10 times people have stumbled over Zoom’s quirks, creating moments that are equal parts cringeworthy and comedy gold. From accidental nudity to bizarre filters, each mishap shows just how easy it is to miss a button and end up in viral infamy.

Why 10 Times People Struggle With Zoom

10 Naked Meeting With Brazilian President

Picture this: you log into what you think is a routine business call, only to realize you’re broadcasting a full‑body shower scene. For most of us, that would be a nightmare, but for a Brazilian entrepreneur it was a very real (and very naked) disaster, witnessed by none other than President Jair Bolsonaro.

The entrepreneur, Paulo Skaf, had arranged the conference to discuss industry matters. Mid‑meeting, he slipped into the bathroom, turned on the tap, and, in a classic “forgot‑to‑turn‑off‑the‑camera” move, left his webcam rolling while he was, quite literally, in his birthday suit.

President Bolsonaro, noticing the unexpected guest, interrupted the agenda with, “Paulo, there’s a colleague there in the last little square. He left. Is he OK?”

Industry Minister Paolo Guedes then clarified, “There is a guy having a shower there, naked.”

Bolsonaro concluded, “Unfortunately we saw. It was a shaky picture but we saw,” sealing the moment as one of the most awkward diplomatic encounters ever recorded.

9 Boss Turns Herself Into A Potato

Monday morning, Washington, D.C. staff logged into a scheduled call only to discover their boss had transformed into a spud. Lizet Ocampo, a national director at People For The American Way, accidentally activated a potato filter that replaced her face with a tuber sitting in soil, leaving only her eyes and mouth visible.

The sight sent the whole team into a fit of giggles. Ocampo, initially flustered, tried to disable the filter but to no avail. In the end, she embraced her new potato persona, much to the delight of her colleagues, who laughed for a solid ten minutes as captured by employee Rachele Clegg on Twitter.

8 Irish Politician Forgets His Pants

June 2020 saw Irish MEP Luke “Ming” Flanagan inadvertently join a European Parliament session without trousers. After a quick jog, he tossed on a shirt, convinced his lower half was safely off‑camera, only to discover he’d been broadcasting in portrait mode, fully exposing his bare legs during a debate on agriculture policy.

Fellow lawmakers tried to stifle their chuckles as Flanagan’s pant‑less display stole the spotlight. Nicknamed after the villainous Flash Gordon antagonist, he earned a new moniker: “Ming the Trouserless.” He took the ribbing in stride, joking, “Who could have known my legs would be so popular? Should I get them insured?”

7 Half‑Dressed Parents Get High During Their Kids’ Classes

Imagine prepping for your child’s first online class only to spot a classmate’s mom strolling past in underwear, a massive joint dangling from her fingers. The pandemic‑era shift to remote learning has exposed a slew of parental faux pas, from half‑clothed wanderings to blatant cannabis consumption.

One Florida teacher, Edith Pride of Boca Raton Elementary, used a school‑board meeting to issue a stern reminder: parents should dress appropriately and conceal any smoking paraphernalia while assisting their children on Zoom.

“Parents, when you are helping your children at their computer, please do not appear with big joints in your hands and cigarettes,” Pride warned. “Those joints be as big as cigars. Oh yeah, we’ve seen it all.”

6 Lecturers Mouth Off About Student Presentations

Zoom etiquette 101: always double‑check who can hear you before launching into a tirade. Two business lecturers at Galway‑Mayo Institute of Technology thought the virtual classroom was empty after a student presentation, only to realize the learners were still on the call.

Unaware, they unleashed a barrage of scathing remarks—one presenter’s work was likened to “having a dentist drill into your teeth,” while another’s pace was described as “so slow it made the lecturer wonder if the student was disabled.”

The private rant, however, was broadcast live. A student captured the exchange, posted it online, and the college promptly issued an apology for the inadvertent humiliation.

5 Mexican Politician Skives Off Work Badly

In September 2020, Mexican congresswoman Valentina Batres Guadarrama tried a sneaky exit from a Zoom session by swapping her video feed for a static photo of herself, hoping to fake attendance.

Unfortunately for her, the plan backfired. The video showed her arm inching over the webcam as she slipped away, and the background image flickered, exposing the ruse. The clip went viral, amassing over 70,000 views.

Jorge Gavino of the Democratic Revolutionary Party mocked the blunder, quipping, “I was thinking you were paying a lot of attention to my speech, until I realized that your attentive look was a photograph.”

Guadarrama later denied any intentional truancy, claiming the background was an accidental upload and that she left the call to seek technical assistance.

4 Congressman Flips Himself Upside Down

February 2021 saw U.S. Representative Tom Emmer inadvertently join a House committee meeting with his camera feed inverted, presenting an upside‑down visage that left colleagues momentarily bewildered.

As Emmer attempted his speech on job security, attendees struggled to keep a straight face, with one colleague gently pointing out, “You’re upside down, Tom.” Another mused that the topsy‑turvy look might be a visual metaphor for the nation’s chaotic state.

A quick reboot of his device corrected the orientation, restoring normalcy. If only the nation’s policy challenges could be solved with such a simple “turn it off and on again.”

3 Californian School Board Bad‑Mouths Parents

A Northern California school board inadvertently aired a scathing internal discussion, not realizing the Zoom meeting was set to public. Members of the Oakley Union Elementary School committee vented about parental complaints regarding school closures, likening teachers to babysitters and joking about parents wanting children home so they could “get high.”

During the tirade, a board member launched a profanity‑laden rant, declaring, “Bitch, if you’re going to call me out, I’m going to fuck you up,” while others laughed. The conversation took a dark turn when they discovered the session was publicly streamed.

An NBC reporter captured the outburst, shared it on social media, and sparked an online petition demanding the board’s removal. Ultimately, the entire board resigned amid the scandal.

2 Mexican Senator Goes Topless

May 2020 found Mexican senator Martha Lucía Mícher Camarena unintentionally appearing topless during a governmental Zoom discussion on the economy. She had stepped away to change clothes, forgetting that her camera remained active.

Colleagues quickly alerted her to the accidental exposure. Rather than feeling ashamed, Camarena posted on Twitter, asserting, “I am a 66‑year‑old woman who has breastfed four children, three of whom are now professional, responsible men, and I am proud of my body for having nurtured them.” Fellow lawmakers defended her, calling her an “exemplary woman,” while condemning those who circulated the images online.

1 Filipino Chief Caught Sleeping With Treasurer

Perhaps the most scandalous Zoom slip‑up came from the Philippines, where village council chief Jesus Estil, while discussing pandemic response, muted his microphone, slipped into the bedroom, and proceeded to make love to his treasurer, believing he was out of view.

Unaware that his camera was still broadcasting, Estil completed the encounter and re‑joined the meeting as if nothing had happened. Another participant captured the indiscretion, and the footage quickly spread online.

Both Estil and the treasurer resigned in the wake of the viral exposure, underscoring that some Zoom blunders are best left unseen.

When the Mona Lisa vanished in 1911, the world’s eyes were glued to the scandal, turning the portrait into a cultural icon. Though it resurfaced after two years, countless masterpieces remain unaccounted for, many of them snatched during the notorious 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery in Boston – a caper that netted thieves over $500 million in art. Below, we count down the 10 famous works that have yet to be recovered, each with its own dramatic backstory.

10 Famous Works Worth the Hunt

10 Landscape With An Obelisk, Govert Flinck

Long mistaken for a Rembrandt, Landscape With An Obelisk is actually the work of Dutch painter Govert Flinck. The oil‑on‑wood piece measures 21 × 28 inches and portrays a tempest‑laden scene featuring a towering obelisk, a broken tree trunk, and a diminutive rider on horseback.

The canvas shot to fame when it was lifted from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum during the 1990 heist. Two men, masquerading as police officers, overpowered guards and walked away with thirteen artworks, including this painting. The museum’s founder stipulated that the original hanging order remain untouched, which is why visitors still see an empty frame hanging where Flinck’s work once lived.

9 Just Judges, Jan Van Eyck

The Ghent Altarpiece—a monumental polyptych crafted by Jan Van Eyck and his brother Hubert—lost one of its panels, the Just Judges, in 1934. The theft occurred at St. Bavo’s Cathedral, where the altarpiece originally hung.

The crime was uncovered by the cathedral’s sexton, the first to notice the panel’s absence. Thieves forced the chapel door, pried off the iron hinges, and absconded with the panel, leaving a note claiming the robbery was revenge for the Treaty of Versailles.

Investigators learned the culprit operated under the alias “D.U.A.” A ransom demand for one million Belgian francs was sent to the bishop of Ghent, but it turned out to be a diversion. While negotiations led to the return of the companion panel, John the Baptist, the Just Judges panel remains missing to this day.

8 Storm On The Sea Of Galilee, Rembrandt

Rembrandt’s 1633 masterpiece, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, vanished in the same 1990 Gardner Museum heist that claimed Flinck’s canvas. Two impostors posing as police officers slipped into the museum, subdued the security staff, and walked away with thirteen works, including this dramatic seascape.

The thieves cut the painting from its frame and removed it with professional precision. Despite a massive FBI investigation and a $5 million reward, the work remains unrecovered. One theory points to local mobsters intending to sell the piece on the black market; to date, investigators have pursued over 30 000 leads without success.

7 Poppy Flowers, Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh’s Poppy Flowers—sometimes called Vase and Flowers—has been stolen twice. Created in 1887, the vibrant canvas shows bright yellow blossoms with scarlet blooms against a dark backdrop. After Van Gogh’s death, the painting traveled from Paris to Cairo, eventually becoming part of the Mohamed Khalil Museum collection.

The first theft occurred in 1977 during a palace transfer, with the work later recovered in Kuwait. A second heist in August 2010 saw thieves cut the canvas from its frame in broad daylight, exposing glaring security flaws: most cameras were offline and alarms were disabled. Valued at roughly $50 million today, the painting’s whereabouts remain a mystery.

6 View Of Auvers‑Sur‑Oise, Cezanne

Paul Cezanne’s View of Auvers‑sur‑Oise fetched an estimated $5.5 million AUD before it disappeared from Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum on New Year’s Eve 1999. Thieves exploited the festive chaos, scaling scaffolding, shattering a skylight, and deploying a smoke bomb to blind the surveillance system before snatching the canvas with a rope ladder.

The museum’s sole Cezanne piece vanished while other works by Renoir, Rodin, and Toulouse‑Lautrec remained untouched. Experts suspect the theft was a demand‑driven job, given the painting’s fame and limited resale market. Despite intensive investigations by British and international art‑crime specialists, the canvas has yet to surface.

5 Nativity With St. Francis And St. Lawrence, Caravaggio

Caravaggio’s 1609 masterpiece Nativity With St. Francis and St. Lawrence depicts the infant Christ amid saints, shepherds, an ox, and an angel bearing a banner that reads “Gloria.” The work was stolen from the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo on October 18 1969.

Although investigations have produced numerous theories—ranging from the painting being burnt, abandoned, or even sliced into pieces—the artwork’s current location remains unknown. Valued at roughly $20 million, it ranks among the FBI’s top ten art crimes of all time. Some rumor mills suggest it may be hidden in Sicily, possibly serving as collateral in drug‑related deals.

4 Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud

While most art lovers know the names Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, fewer realize the two shared a 25‑year friendship that began in the mid‑1940s. Their bohemian London lives were marked by constant critique of each other’s work despite wildly differing styles.

In 1952, Freud painted Bacon’s portrait on a small copper canvas. The piece was stolen during a 1988 exhibition at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie. Despite Freud’s relentless search—including a “Wanted” poster campaign—the portrait remains missing.

3 Danish Jubilee Egg, Peter Carl Fabergé

The Danish Jubilee Egg is one of six missing Fabergé Imperial Easter eggs, originally crafted for the Russian royal family. Out of the 52 eggs Fabergé produced, only 46 are accounted for; the remaining six, including this one, have vanished.

According to the sole surviving description, the egg featured blue‑and‑white enamel set in gold, mounted on lion‑adorned columns with an elephant perched above. A central screen displayed portraits of King Christian IX and Queen Louise, jeweled with precious stones. Created in 1903, the egg symbolized the highest order of the Danish kingdom. Its last recorded sighting was at Gatchina Palace in July 1917, after which its fate remains a mystery.

2 Portrait Of A Young Man, Raphael

Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man dates to roughly 1513‑1514 and once hung in Poland’s Princes Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, alongside works by Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. The painting vanished amid Nazi looting during World War II and has been missing for over 75 years.

Some scholars suspect that Nazi official Hans Frank, who oversaw the Polish General Government, seized the piece. Whether Frank kept it or sold it to a private collector remains unclear. Today, its estimated value exceeds $100 million, making it one of the most valuable missing artworks. The museum’s empty frame still stands as a silent tribute.

1 The Concert, Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer’s The Concert—painted between 1663 and 1666—holds the dubious honor of being the single most expensive missing artwork in history. The piece vanished during the infamous 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery, which also claimed Flinck’s and Van Eyck’s works.

Depicting a domestic interior where three figures make music, the painting was the first major acquisition of museum founder Isabella Stewart Gardner. Valued today at over $200 million, the work remains the centerpiece of an ongoing FBI investigation, with the museum still offering a substantial reward for information leading to its recovery.

The narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s 1835 short story “Berenice” asks a chilling question: “How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness?” Imagine flipping that query—”How is it that from unloveliness I have derived a type of beauty?” The answer lies in the ten unsettling creations we’ll explore, each a disturbing work that turns tragedy into visual testimony.

10 Ten Breaths: Tumbling Woman II by Eric Fischl

The bronze piece titled Ten Breaths: Tumbling Woman II (2007‑2008) by Eric Fischl immediately suggests a gymnast caught mid‑air, yet the stark nudity, the raw, earthen tones splashed with a fiery orange, and the unsettling tumble onto head, neck, and a shoulder raise more questions than answers. Why is she unclothed? Why does the sculpture freeze a moment of a disastrous fall rather than a graceful pirouette?

The puzzle resolves when the plaque’s inscription is considered: “We watched, disbelieving and helpless, on that savage day. People we love began falling, helpless and in disbelief.” The “savage day” refers to September 11, 2001, when al‑Qaeda’s coordinated attacks sent planes into the World Trade Center, prompting desperate victims to leap from the towers. The Smithsonian American Art Museum notes that the sculpture’s focus on the frailty of the human form gains profound resonance against that tragic backdrop.

Thus, Fischl’s work becomes a solemn reminder of the moment when ordinary bodies were thrust into an unimaginable catastrophe, capturing the vulnerability that the 9/11 attacks laid bare.

9 The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault

The oil masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa (1818‑1819) by Theodore Gericault presents a chaotic pyramid of anguished figures, each rendered with a mix of clothing, half‑clothing, and stark nudity. Their varied states of dress underscore the frantic, hasty escape onto a makeshift raft, hinting at the panic that seized the ship’s survivors as they clung to the precarious platform amid a threatening wave.

Historical context, as explained by Dr. Claire Black McCoy, reveals that the painting captures the July 1816 disaster of the French frigate Méduse, which ran aground off West Africa. The governor of Senegal, his family, and other dignitaries escaped in lifeboats, leaving roughly 150 passengers stranded on a hastily built raft. Of those, only fifteen were rescued, and merely ten lived to recount the horror of cannibalism, murder, and sheer desperation that unfolded aboard.

Now displayed in the Louvre, the canvas serves as a visceral chronicle of a political scandal turned human tragedy, where the raw desperation of the survivors is frozen in Gericault’s dramatic brushwork.

8 Grey Day by George Grosz

At first glance, George Grosz’s post‑World War I canvas Grey Day (1921) appears to depict a mundane urban scene: a laborer with a shovel strides past a smoking factory, while a suited businessman walks toward the viewer. Yet the grotesque features of the figures—particularly a scar‑faced, one‑armed veteran and a cross‑eyed, well‑dressed man—hint at deeper social commentary.

The Tate explains that Grosz uses the partially built brick wall separating the veteran and the businessman to illustrate the widening gulf between those who suffered in war and those who profited from it. The veteran’s limp cane and the businessman’s briefcase and ruler suggest that both have been scarred by conflict, but in starkly different ways. The ambiguous wall forces the viewer to decide whether it is being erected or dismantled, symbolizing the ongoing tension between wealth and the wounded.

Through this unsettling juxtaposition, Grosz critiques a society that celebrates industrial progress while neglecting the disabled veterans left to navigate a fractured world.

7 Big Electric Chair by Andy Warhol

The execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953, after their conviction for espionage, left a grisly imprint on American memory. While Julius died after a single shock, Ethel endured three jolts before the fourth fatal charge sent a dreadful plume of smoke from her head, as detailed by Irene Philipson in Ethel Rosenberg: Beyond the Myths.

Andy Warhol, a pioneer of silkscreen technique, shifted from celebrity portraits to the macabre in his “Death and Disasters” series. His painting Big Electric Chair (1967‑1968) draws directly from a press photograph taken inside Sing Sing, the very facility where the Rosenbergs met their end. Warhol’s repetitive, mass‑produced imagery seeks to desensitize viewers, echoing his belief that repeated exposure to gruesome scenes dulls their impact.

In this stark work, Warhol forces the audience to confront the cold mechanics of state‑sanctioned death, turning a moment of execution into a haunting visual critique.

6 Guernica by Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso’s monumental mural Guernica (1937) erupts with nightmarish symbolism: a screaming horse, a raging bull, fragmented bodies, and anguished faces. Created in response to the Nazi bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, the work captures the raw devastation of that aerial assault.

Rendered in a limited palette of black, blue, and white, the painting emphasizes the starkness of the aftermath, stripping away color to focus on suffering. Scholars interpret the bull as a representation of fascism, while the horse embodies the tormented civilians of Guernica. The chaotic composition, with its broken sword and shattered figures, underscores the universal tragedy of war.

Picasso’s masterpiece remains a timeless indictment of the horrors inflicted upon innocent populations, cementing its place as a powerful anti‑war statement.

5 The Course of Empire: Destruction by Thomas Cole

Thomas Cole’s sweeping canvas The Course of Empire: Destruction (1836) dramatizes the fall of the Roman Empire, portraying a storm‑raged battlefield where massive armies clash beneath a burning metropolis. The scene includes a fleet of ships—some resembling Viking vessels—laying siege to defenders atop crumbling rooftops.

Within the turmoil, a Roman centurion battles a towering barbarian, while a shattered statue of a Roman soldier lies broken on a rooftop, its head split in two. A terrified Roman woman is seized by a barbarian, poised to hurl herself into the sea. The painting’s chaotic energy captures the cataclysmic end of an empire that once promised peace and order for two centuries.

Displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cole’s work serves as a visual narrative of empire’s inevitable collapse, reminding viewers of the fragility of civilization.

4 Human Laundry by Doris Clare Zinkeisen

Doris Clare Zinkeisen’s stark 1945 canvas Human Laundry: Belsen, 1945 confronts the Nazis’ systematic dehumanization of Jewish victims. Rendered in muted grays and whites, the painting shows emaciated bodies laid on tables, being washed by German nurses under the supervision of a uniformed doctor. A pair of bearers arrives with a covered body, suggesting another “human laundry” item being processed.

Notes accompanying the work highlight the jarring contrast between the well‑fed, rounded German medical staff and the skeletal prisoners they tend to. The nurses’ detached expressions and the resigned posture of the victims amplify the sense of dehumanization. A nurse nonchalantly carries buckets past a puddle of spilled water, underscoring the cold efficiency of the operation.

Further research reveals that these “human laundry” stations served as makeshift de‑louse and bathing facilities in Belsen, where German personnel and captured soldiers cleaned the prisoners before transferring them to an improvised Red Cross hospital, attempting to curb typhus spread.

3 Stories Behind the Postcards by Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott’s 2009 series Stories Behind the Postcards was displayed at America’s Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee. The catalyst for the series were souvenir postcards that depicted lynching scenes, circulated nationwide between the 1880s and World War II. Scott wondered about the unseen narratives behind these images—who mourned, who buried the victims, and what daily life preceded the captured moment.

Scott’s goal was to compel viewers to empathize with the victims, urging them to envision the lives cut short before they were reduced to a postcard. By rendering the scenes in vivid color, she counters the sepia‑toned anonymity of the original cards, emphasizing that these atrocities unfolded in broad daylight amid natural beauty.

One painting, The Impossible, alongside works titled Three Generations and My Son, My Grandson, showcases a middle‑aged woman comforting an anguished elder over a lynched young woman, highlighting the intergenerational trauma and the stark contrast between the violent act and the serene surroundings.

2 The Price by Tom Lea

The Price (1944) by Tom Lea offers a visceral depiction of the personal cost of World War II combat. The painting shows a U.S. Marine advancing across a smoke‑filled field in Peleliu, his left side—face, shoulder, chest, and arm—splashed with vivid red blood after a mortar blast. Lea recounted that the Marine “was hit with a mortar blast, staggered a few yards like that, and just fell down.”

Art dealer Adair Margo noted that Lea was the sole eyewitness painter who captured soldiers being blown apart with explicit blood and gore. Lea’s ability to render battle in color—when contemporary photography was monochrome—allowed him to piece together fragmented moments into a cohesive, harrowing whole. The painting hung outside General Eisenhower’s Pentagon office, serving as a stark reminder of war’s true cost.

The National World War II Museum’s curator Larry Decuers highlighted that Lea’s works, featured in a Life magazine exhibit, included twenty‑six paintings documenting the brutal Peleliu campaign, where 1,100 Marines died, 5,000 were wounded, and nearly every Japanese soldier on the island perished.

1 The Broken Column by Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo’s personal tragedy was not born of war or politics but of a devastating accident. After surviving polio as a child, she endured a near‑fatal bus crash as a teenager that fractured her spine, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, foot, and dislocated her shoulder. The injuries forced her into prolonged periods of immobilization, during which she began to paint to cope with her pain.

In her 1944 self‑portrait The Broken Column, Kahlo appears topless, bound by an orthopedic corset that resembles a broken architectural column. A wide fissure replaces her spine, symbolizing her internal agony, while nails pierce her face and body, representing lingering pain and isolation. Art historian Andrea Kettenmann notes that the fissured landscape behind her mirrors the shattered state of her own body.

Despite undergoing thirty surgeries, Kahlo persisted, turning her suffering into powerful autobiographical art that continues to resonate as a testament to resilience amid personal catastrophe.

10 Disturbing Works Overview

These ten unsettling creations—spanning bronze sculptures, oil canvases, and modern silkscreen prints—demonstrate how artists transform horror into enduring visual testimony, ensuring that the darkest chapters of history remain vivid in collective memory.

Although people sometimes think of “art” as only or primarily the visual arts, fine arts are much more varied. According to The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, they include not only painting and drawing but also “sculpture, literature, architecture, drama, music, dance, opera, and television and movies.”

It is in this broad sense of the meaning of the term that the artists on this list are included. Each of them, whether a painter, a novelist, or a poet, is not only famous but also shares the rather surprising experience of having had one or more of their works inspired by a hallucination.

Related: Top 10 Frightening Facts About Hallucinations

10 Futuristic Images

Dr. Jean Kim believes Yayoi Kusama’s art teaches us how to live. The Japanese painter’s work features polka dots, the trademark theme she developed when she was 10 years old, and incorporates imagery from the hallucinations that the artist experiences.

Kim describes Kusama’s art as a mixture of abstract expressionism and conceptual art characterized by its graphic, colorful, and somewhat futuristic images. Kim cites the artist’s Infinity Rooms as an example: “These rooms are small self-contained mirror chambers, allowing the viewer to simultaneously lose one’s identity and sense of self in the infinity of a repeated image evoking the universe.” She adds the paintings capture the reality of selfies, which have become increasingly popular in recent years, as they’ve been distributed rapidly far and wide via social media.

Kusama’s art also helps the artist herself cope with, and even transcend, her mental illness. Kim points out that although not specifically diagnosed, it is consistent with psychosis and possible schizophrenia. While marked by hallucinations and “the disintegration of one’s sense of self and identity, leading to anxiety and paranoia.” Kusama’s art is therapeutic, allowing the painter to reconsolidate the fear of disintegration that the artist experiences.^[1]

9 Stalking Crustaceans and Bizarre Transformations

In 1935, French existential philosopher, novelist, and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) decided to take a trip—a very special kind of trip. He prevailed upon his friend, Daniel Lagache, a medical doctor, to punch his ticket, so to speak, by injecting his patient with mescaline, which was used at the time to treat alcoholism and depression.

As a result, Sartre experienced a “bad trip.” Writer Emily Zarevich describes some of the more salient features of Sartre’s mind-blowing adventure. Not only did bizarre, frightening crustaceans pursue him wherever he went, but ordinary objects transformed themselves into animals, “his clock [becoming] an owl, his umbrella to a vulture.”

Sartre’s adventure ended with a mental breakdown. Part of his campaign of redemption that followed included his consultation with famed psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. After that, Sartre understood that the crabs that had pursued him symbolized the philosopher’s fear of being alone. Although he was able to rid himself, intermittently, of the crustaceans that haunted him, the crabs reappeared in Sartre’s experimental and ground-breaking 1938 novel La Nausée (Nausea). In the book, readers are treated to a ludicrous sex scene in which the main character daydreams he’s trapped in a garden full of insects and animals walking crab-style.^[2]

8 Shapes on the Ceiling

Despite his eventual fame, Joan Miro (1893-1983) was once a starving artist. The surrealist painter himself explained the way that he conceived the subjects of his art. Janis Mink summarizes his process in her book, Miro. Upon returning to his Paris studio at night, he would go to bed sometimes without supper, where he would see things, including shapes on the ceiling, before jotting them down in a notebook. Sometimes, the sights were “remembered dreams” from his unrestful sleep; other times, they were images seen in “hallucinations caused by hunger.”

Although Miro might appear to have sufficient funds for necessities and “trips back and forth to Spain,” he was actually impoverished. His hunger, though, like the “ether, cocaine, alcohol, morphine, or sex” that his colleagues employed, helped him to get in touch with his subconscious. This worked out well for Miro, who was too deeply spiritual to destroy his own body and fully enjoyed his own connection to nature. His 1925 painting, The Birth of the World, quickly attained fame.^[3]

7 Blood Sky and Open Chest Wound

Edvard Munch (1863-1944), who, according to Dr. Albert Rothenberg, may have had bipolar disorder with psychosis, experienced visual and auditory hallucinations and received psychiatric hospitalization in 1908.

Munch himself explains the origin of his celebrated, if dark and disturbing, painting The Scream (1893): “I was walking along the road with two of my friends. Then the sun set. The sky suddenly turned into blood, and I felt something akin to a touch of melancholy. I stood still, leaned against the railing, dead tired. Above the blue black fjord and city hung clouds of dripping, rippling blood. My friends went on again. I stood, frightened, with an open wound in my breast. A great scream pierced through nature.”

The experience, clearly a visual hallucination, was creatively transformed by Munch in several phases over a period of eighteen months into a work of art. Five preliminary sketches in the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, show changes in the position of the painting’s lone figure, resulting in the subjects being turned to face the viewer and being visually integrated with the scene. The successive changes show how Munch’s artistry transformed his hallucination into a significant and meaningful portrait of an emotional state of mind and reflected the artist’s own healthy creative processes.^[4]

6 Autoscopic Hallucination

An autoscopic hallucination is the perception of one’s own body or a part of it as existing separately and externally to the self. This type of hallucination occurred in conjunction with meningitis, seizures, space-occupying lesions, brain tumors, migraine, delirium, and post-traumatic brain lesions.

The Russian novelist Feodor (also spelled “Fyodor” and “Fjodor”) Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was regarded as an abnormally high-strung personality and suffered from an unknown ailment that made him subject to hallucinations. Even as a child, he had auditory hallucinations. Once, while hiking through a forest, he heard a voice warn that a wolf was loose. As Joseph Frank recounts in Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt 1821-1849, as an adult, the novelist confided, he had become the victim of some sort of strange and unbearably torturing nervous illness that he called “mystic terror.” For a time, the novelist was convinced that someone who snored shared his bed. He had other hallucinations as well.

In fact, the second Mr. Golyadkin featured in the novel The Double may have been inspired by an autoscopic hallucination experienced by Dostoevsky himself. In any case, it is clear Dostoevsky’s “first-hand acquaintance with hallucinatory phenomena and his exceptional talent” allowed Dostoevsky to verbalize and analyze such experiences.^[5]

5 Hypnagogic Hallucinations

The English novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1879) experienced hypnagogic hallucinations, defined as fleeting perceptual experiences during the transition from wakefulness to sleep. Such incidents are often associated with involuntary and imagined experiences, hypnagogic hallucinations, and hypnopompic hallucinations (in the period from sleep to wakefulness). Dickens was also an insomniac.

His characters experience similar conditions and hallucinations, including insomnia, sleep promotion, hypnagogic hallucinations, perhaps the first report of restless legs syndrome, sleep paralysis, dreams, nightmares, terror, and drowsiness. One example of Dickens’s literary depiction of a hypnagogic hallucination appears in A Christmas Carol, as Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by four ghosts, leaving Scrooge unsure whether they are a dream or reality. A second example is that of Oliver Twist, who, when he falls asleep, “sees his enemies, Monks and Fagin, apparently in an episode of dream-reality confusion.”^[6]

4 Archangels and the Face of God

At age four, the poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake (1757-1827) saw God’s face through a window of the child’s house. About six years later, he said he saw a tree full of angels, their “bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.” Later, archangels would dictate poetry to him and infuse the themes of his visual art. Blake’s hallucinations, which occurred again and again throughout his life, also included audible voices—those of his dead brother, to whom he spoke every day, and of angels.

A retroactive diagnosis of Blake suggests that he may have suffered from bipolar disorder or temporal lobe epilepsy. This latter condition could explain his seeing “ecstatic aurae,” such as those that typically indicate the presence of deities or angels in paintings and drawings.^[7]

3 Brobdingnagian Hallucination

As Jan Dirk Blom points out in A Dictionary of Hallucinations, the Gulliverian hallucination, aka the brobdingnagian hallucination, refers to a macroptic hallucination in which a human figure or figures are seen as disproportionally large. Terms like “lilliputian hallucination,” which involves the perception of tiny human figures, were inspired by Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels.

Swift (1667-1745) experienced symptoms akin to those of Ménière’s disease, including cognitive changes, memory impairment, personality alterations, language disorder, and facial paralysis during the last three years of his life. And it is thought that the novel’s gigantic inhabitants of Brobdingnag and tiny people of Lilliput are based on Swift’s own visual hallucinations.^[8]

2 Hallucinations of the Sane

Whoever has seen The Garden of Earthly Delights must have wondered what, besides the fervent religious beliefs of Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450s-1516), inspired the paintings. To say that they are bizarre and perverse characterizes the triptych in relatively mild terms.

Strange architecture, part floral and part stone; hybrid creatures; nude men and women performing acrobatics or sexual acts or riding horses, camels, mules, boars, bulls, and unicorns; huge fruits; lovers trapped inside clam shells, transparent floral bodies, and glass tubes; flowers in strange places—these are only some of the surreal images in the central panel of the triptych, which shows scenes of an earthly paradise awash in lust, preceding the even-worse pictures reserved for the right panel’s depiction of hell.

Roger Blench, author of “The hallucinatory Hieronymus Bosch: Charles Bonnet syndrome?” briefly assesses the possibility that Bosch’s imagery is related to episodes of Charles Bonnet Syndrome [CBS], aka “hallucinations of the sane.” Although Blench dismisses attempts to pigeonhole Bosch according to any one interpretation, he also suggests that there is evidence to see the artist’s work as Bosch’s own hallucinations transferred to canvas framed in an iconography acceptable to his era. According to this interpretation, Bosch wanted to express his paintings’ themes in at least an ostensibly Roman Catholic worldview that could be viewed as doctrinal, if unusual.^[9]

1 Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven

In Dante Alighieri (c. 1265-1321), we meet a poet whose work is nearly as strange and surreal, if not as obscure, as Bosch’s Garden. It wouldn’t be surprising to find that Dante’s epic depiction of the poet’s journey through hell (The Inferno), purgatory (Purgatorio), and heaven (Paradiso) was based, at least in part, on the poet’s own hallucinations. Indeed, such may very well have been the case, as it has been theorized the author may have had narcolepsy.

In The Divine Comedy, the poet Dante references his fictional counterpart’s sleep, weariness, dreams, and, as Dante himself writes, “rested eyes.” These allusions are explained as indications that the actual Dante suffered from both narcolepsy and catalepsy. The former is a neurological disorder. It interferes with the body’s regulation of sleep-wake cycles, causing sleepiness during the day and the tendency to nap for brief periods during waking hours. The latter condition causes muscular rigidity and unresponsiveness to the stimuli of the objective world.

The fictional Dante’s entire journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven is marked by sudden wake-dreaming transitions, short and refreshing naps, visions and hallucinations, unconscious behaviors, episodes of muscle weakness, and falls which are always triggered by strong emotions. The evidence that Dante is writing from experience about the hallucinations implied by his poetry is there in The Divine Comedy itself, in the behavior of its protagonist, the fictional Dante.^[10]

Have you ever read a book that described a location so vividly that you wished you could visit it? Well, sometimes you can. Often authors are inspired by real-world places when crafting their book settings, whether based in our world or a fantasy one. This means that readers who have been bitten by the travel bug can set off on real adventures to explore some of their favorite locations from literature.

This list rounds up 10 UK locations from classic books that you can actually visit, providing a literary tour of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. They are listed from “loosely related” to “basically identical.” So even if you aren’t a bookworm, this list likely includes a true classic or a more modern work that you love with an accompanying destination worth exploring.

Related: 10 Rude-Sounding British Places With Unbelievable Backstories

10 Glamis Castle and Cawdor Castle: Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare

Although Macbeth is based on the life of a real Scottish king, Shakespeare was no historian, and his version is highly fictionalized. Macbeth is described as the Thane of Glamis and the Thane of Cawdor, but these castles weren’t actually built until around 300 years after Macbeth’s death. Both castles have fostered this literary connection, though.

Glamis, which looks like an ornate French chateau, has a walking trail that features wooden carvings of the main characters from Shakespeare’s play and a grand hall named after one of Macbeth’s victims, King Duncan. Of course, it has its own history of murder and witchcraft, too (as do the majority of Scottish castles).

Cawdor is a medieval fortress built around a holly tree (now petrified at the base of the old tower) due to a vision apparently experienced by the Thane of Cawdor (the real one, not Shakespeare’s Macbeth). He was instructed in a dream to let a donkey roam and then build a castle wherever it lay down to sleep. Like Glamis, Cawdor takes advantage of the Shakespeare connection and has previously staged a production of Macbeth.^[1]

9 Llandudno: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll

Alice Pleasance Liddell (now known as the real “Alice” in Wonderland) spent summer holidays with her family in the Welsh seaside town of Llandudno. The Liddells were close friends with Charles Dodgson, better known by his pen-name, Lewis Carroll, and the story goes that he was inspired by Alice’s adventures in Llandudno.

The Welsh town has made the most of this association, beginning with a White Rabbit statue installed in 1933 and continuing with a number of Wonderland Town Trails. These trails cover much of the Victorian resort town, which has the longest pier in Wales, and feature statues of characters from Carroll’s fantastical novel. You can now even explore the trails with augmented reality.^[2]

8 Unst: Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson

While there is no record of exactly which island inspired Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson certainly had a few to pick from. His father was a lighthouse engineer, and Stevenson would often accompany him on visits to various islands. There are around 900 islands surrounding mainland Scotland, but Unst has a particularly strong claim.

Stevenson traveled to Unst, part of the Shetland Islands and the UK’s most northerly inhabited island, with his father in 1869. Beautiful and relatively isolated, it is easy to see why this island would spark a story about pirates. Paula Williams, the curator of the Maps, Mountaineering, and Polar Collections at the National Library of Scotland, explains that the outlines of both islands resemble each other “complete with corresponding inlets and [the] small islet Skeleton Island, [as it is called in the novel], or Uya [its real name].”^[3]

7 Edinburgh: The Harry Potter Series (1997–2007) by J. K. Rowling

J. K. Rowling created the Wizarding World while living in Edinburgh, and the city’s grand architecture and cobbled alleyways are reflected in the books. Candlemaker Row features a plaque and mural to mark it as the inspiration of Diagon Alley. But if you type “Diagon Alley” into Google Maps, it will send you to Victoria Street, which feels just as wizardly with its colorful shops and secret stairways.

Another link between the Scottish capital and Harry Potter can be found in Greyfriars Kirkyard, a 17th-century cemetery. The cemetery features the gravestone of Thomas Riddell, which only slightly differs in spelling from the birth name of Lord Voldemort, Tom Riddle.

You can also visit places where parts of Harry Potter were written. The earlier books were largely written in The Elephant House café, and the series was finished in a room (now named The J. K. Rowling Suite) at the Balmoral Hotel. The suite features subtle Harry Potter decorations, but it isn’t cheap, costing almost £2000, or $2700, for a one-night stay.^[4]

6 Haworth: Various Novels by the Brontë Sisters

This entry covers books written by the Brontë sisters, primarily Charlotte’s Jane Eyre (1847), Emily’s Wuthering Heights (1847), and Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). The sisters lived in the Yorkshire village of Haworth, which is surrounded by dramatic moorland, and they set their novels in the area, which is now known as Brontë Country.

Their family home has been turned into the Brontë Parsonage Museum, which houses the largest collection of Brontë manuscripts, letters, and early editions of poetry and novels. Around the area are various properties which inspired buildings from the novels. Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse located on the moors near Haworth, inspired Wuthering Heights, while Gawthorpe Hall and Wycoller Hall served as Ferndean Manor in Jane Eyre. There is even a 44-mile trail called the Brontë Way, which links key locations from the books.^[5]

5 Antrim Coast and County Down: The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956) by C. S. Lewis

In fiction, the world of Narnia is accessible through a wardrobe; in reality, it is located in Northern Ireland. C. S. Lewis’s fantasy world was inspired by the landscapes of the Antrim Coast and County Down. In a letter to his brother, he declared, “That part of Rostrevor which overlooks Carlingford Lough is my idea of Narnia.” And in his essay “On Stories,” he stated, “I have seen landscapes (notably in the Mourne Mountains) which, under a particular light, made me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge.”

It is easy to see how the rugged vistas of Northern Ireland inspired Lewis. The ruins of Dunluce Castle, perched on a cliff above the sea, would fit comfortably within the world of Narnia. The hexagonal basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway feel infused with the magic which Lewis saw in the country. Legend has it that the giant Finn McCool built the Causeway as a bridge over to Scotland. Although New Zealand was the filming location for the movies, the closest you can get to Lewis’s idea of Narnia is Northern Ireland. ^[6]

4 Oxford: His Dark Materials (1995–2000) by Philip Pullman

There are many magical locations visited in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, but the story starts in an alternate version of Oxford. Pullman attended the University of Oxford during the ‘60s, and it clearly left an impact on him because his main character, Lyra, grows up at the university. All of the college buildings spread throughout the city look impressive, but the basis for the fictional Jordan College was probably Pullman’s alma mater, Exeter College. When filming the TV series, though, New College was used as a substitute for Jordan.

There are many Oxford landmarks mentioned throughout the books. You can visit the Covered Market, which sells far more than just the fish mentioned in The Golden Compass; The Pitt Rivers Museum, which Lyra explores in The Subtle Knife; and Jericho, a neighborhood with canals where Pullman’s Gyptians moor their narrowboats.^[7]

3 Birmingham: The Lord of the Rings (1937–1949) by J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien, like his friend C. S. Lewis, was inspired by where he grew up when creating the fantasy world for his novels. Though, again like C. S. Lewis, the adaptations of his works were filmed in New Zealand. Tolkien grew up in and around Birmingham, and the area inspired his descriptions of Middle Earth.

The Shire, the idyllic home of the hobbits, was based on Sarehole, Tolkien’s childhood home, which he described as a “kind of lost paradise.” The peaceful English village was composed of old-fashioned cottages (now gone) and an old mill (which is now a museum). Close by is Moseley Bog, a densely wooded area that is reminiscent of the Old Forest on the edge of the Shire.

Landmarks in the city of Birmingham also inspired the author. For instance, Perrott’s Folly and Edgbaston Waterworks Tower helped Tolkien conjure up his Two Towers. The industrialized Black Country of Birmingham was expanding into his beloved countryside and can clearly be seen as a version of the hellish Mordor.^[8]

2 Whitby: Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker drew extensively on Transylvanian folklore when he was researching Dracula. Still, while the novel starts at Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, key elements of the Gothic story did not come together until he visited Whitby for a vacation in 1890. He then chose the English seaside town as one of the novel’s central locations.

Dracula, in the form of a wolf-like creature, runs up the 199 steps that wind up to the impressive ruins of Whitby Abbey. St. Mary’s Churchyard was featured as the location where Lucy is first attacked by the vampire. Whitby’s atmospheric scenery was not the only thing that inspired Stoker, though. He heard of a Russian ship, the Dmitry, which was wrecked on Tate Hill Sands in 1885, and this made it into his novel in the form of Dracula’s ship, the Demeter, meeting the same fate.

In the public library, he read a book that mentioned Vlad Tepes, known as Vlad the Impaler or Dracula. He added the note “Dracula in the Wallachian language means Devil,” and thus, he found the name of his Count. Before this, Stoker had planned to call his vampire Count Wampyr, a name so bad that it probably would have doomed the novel to obscurity.^[9]

1 Ashdown Forest: Winnie-the-Pooh series (1925–1928) by A. A. Milne

If A. A. Milne’s childhood classic books featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and friends adventuring in Hundred Acre Wood captured your imagination as a child, then I’ve got good news for you! Hundred Acre Wood is real, and it’s called Ashdown Forest. Christopher Milne, son of A. A. Milne and inspiration for Christopher Robin, wrote in his autobiography that “Pooh’s forest and Ashdown Forest are identical.”

In 1925 the Milne family bought a holiday home near Ashdown, located only 30 miles from London, in East Sussex. Their time among the pine trees and heathland inspired the classic children’s books. You can even visit the footbridge where Christopher and Pooh play Poohsticks. In the nearby village of Hartfield, you can find Pooh Corner, the village sweet shop that the family visited, which is now a Pooh-themed tea room and museum (called the Pooh-seum).^[10]