Title: Gertrude Vernon, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1864-1932) Artist: John Singer Sargent (American [active in England], 1856-1925) Date: 1892 Genre: portraiture Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 127 cm (50 in) high x 101 cm (39.8 in) wide Location: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Exhibited at the Royal Academy the year after its completion, this painting was instrumental in winning John Singer Sargent the position of the UK's premier high society portraitist.

The subject of the painting is Gertrude Vernon, an Englishwoman who in 1889 had married Sir Andrew Agnew, Baronet of Lochnaw Castle. Singer Sargent depicted Lady Agnew in three-quarters view, wearing a white gown with a mauve sash and backed by a wall of blue silk. Her portrait's fame made Lady Agnew a prominent figure in British society, although her later years would be marred by ill health and financial difficulties.

Title: The Watering Pots Artist: Theodore Robinson (American, 1852-1896) Date: 1890 Genre: genre art, portraiture Movement: American Impressionism Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 55.9 cm (22 in) high x 45.8 cm (18 in) wide Location: Brooklyn Museum, New York City, NY, USA

Title: In the Orchard Artist: Sir James Guthrie (Scottish, 1859-1930) Date: 1886 Genre: genre art Movement: Glasgow Boys Medium: oil on canvas Location: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Sir James Guthrie was a leader among the group of artists known as the "Glasgow Boys," who sought to revivify Scottish art by drawing on external influences, notably the Tonalism of James Abbott McNeill Whistler and the Realism of Jules Bastien-Lepage. Their work, often painted en plein air, used broad swathes of color and flattened perspectives characteristic of Japanese art, in which the group was keenly interested.

Title: The Pipe of Freedom Artist: Thomas Stuart Smith (Scottish, 1815-1869) Date: 1869 Genre: portraiture, genre art Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 106.8 cm (42 in) high x 78.7 cm (30.9 in) wide Location: Stirling Smith Museum and Art Gallery, Stirling, Scotland, UK

Title: Self-Portrait with Her Father Artist: Pepa Mařáková (Czech [born Austria], 1872-1907) Date: 1896 Genre: portraiture Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 100.5 cm (39.5 in) high x 115 cm (45.2 in) wide Location: National Gallery Prague, Czech Republic

Josefina "Pepa" Mařáková was born in Vienna; her father, whom she painted here by her side, was Julius Mařák (1832-1899), a Czech landscape painter. Despite the lifelong ill health that would ultimately bring about her untimely death, Mařáková painted a number of works in the Symbolist style, as well as portraits of notable Czech figures.

Title: Girls in Sunlight Artist: Philip Leslie Hale (American, 1865-1931) Date: 1895 Genre: portraiture, genre art Movement: Impressionism, Symbolism Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 73.6 cm (29 in) high x 99 cm (39 in) wide Location: Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA, USA

Philip Leslie Hale, son of noted Unitarian minister and writer Edward Everett Hale, studied in Paris, after which he spent summers painting in Giverny, coming under the influence of Monet and the Impressionists. He was also a noted art historian; his Jan Vermeer of Delft (1913) was the first monograph on that artist to be published in the United States.

As ever, I'd like to direct people to this quote by Michael Moorcock:

To this day I advise people who want to write fantastic fiction for a living to stop reading generic fantasy and to go back to the roots of the genre as deeply as possible, the way anyone might who takes his craft seriously. One avoids becoming a Tolkien clone precisely by returning to the same roots that inspired The Lord of the Rings.

The same applies to retellings (and adaptations, for that matter, since one user brought it up in the tags). For example, you are less likely to write a TH White clone if you go and read Malory for yourself, or for that matter go further back to Malory's own sources such as the Vulgate Cycle. Another example, you are less likely to become a Madeline Miller clone by reading Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for yourself.

And for heaven's sake, don't do what I did as well for years which was rely on summaries and articles. Try and go as in depth as you can, and face the work on its own terms (but don't be intimidated by its age, either).

Title: The Nubian Guard Artist: Ludwig Deutsch (Austrian/French, 1855-1935) Date: 1902 Genre: portraiture Movement: Orientalism Medium: oil on panel Dimensions: 65 cm (25.5 in) high x 46.5 cm (18.3 in) wide Location: private collection

Ludwig Deutsch came from a well-to-do Jewish family in Vienna and studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. In 1878, he moved to Paris to study with noted Orientalist painter Leopold Carl Müller. Two years later, Deutsch settled in Paris permanently; after gaining French citizenship in 1919, he began to refer to himself as Louis Deutsch.

Title: Seaside (July: Specimen of a Portrait) Artist: James Tissot (French [active in England], 1836-1902) Date: 1878 Genre: portraiture Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 87.5 cm (34.4 in) high x 61 cm (24 in) wide Location: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, USA

Title: Morning Glories Artist: Torajirō Kojima (1881-1929) Date: between 1916 and 1920 Genre: garden painting, genre art Movement: Impressionism Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 197.2 cm (77.6 in) high x 131.5 cm (51.7 in) wide Location: Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, Japan