Paint the Tail on the Donkey Trivia Quiz

Answer: Paul Cezanne

Paul Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839 and much of his later Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work was painted in the surrounding area. The term 'dark period' is used to refer to the works Cezanne produced between 1861 and 1870, when he was mainly based in Paris. His paintings from this time are characterised by both the use of dark colours and the depiction of 'dark' violent scenes such as the robbery in 'The Robbers and the Donkey' and the self-explanatory paintings 'The Rape' and 'The Murder'.

Nicolas Poussin was a 17th century French painter. Degas and Monet were also French Impressionist painters active in the late 19th century but neither had a recognised 'dark period'.

Answer: William Blake

The identity of the character depicted in Blake's painting is disputed. Some scholars have put forward the Greco-Roman goddess, Hecate, as a candidate, while others have opted for Enitharmon, a character that appears in several of Blake's works of literature. In addition to the slightly ghostly donkey, the picture also features an owl with extremely large eyes, the head of a crocodile and a bat with the face of a cat. The work is actually a pen and ink drawing with watercolours, and was presented to London's Tate Gallery in 1939.

William Blake was born in London in 1757 and is perhaps best known for his poetry volumes 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience'. William Wordsworth, John Milton and John Donne were all English poets.

Answer: Francisco Goya

Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish artist who lived from 1746 to 1828. He was an official painter to the courts of both King Charles III and King Charles IV of Spain and is particularly known for his portraits, religious paintings and images depicting the Peninsular War.

The 'Caprichos' are not paintings but a set of aquatint prints published in album form in 1799.They are cartoon-like and provide a caricatured depiction of Spanish society, criticising everything from the clergy, to superstitions such as belief in witchcraft. The scenes including donkeys are used to ridicule the teaching and medical professions as well as the nobility.

Picasso, Dali and Miro were all Spanish artists active in the 20th century.

Answer: John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent was born in Florence to American parents and spent his childhood travelling with his family in Europe. He trained at a prestigious French art school but spent most of his adult life living in England, albeit punctuated by lengthy trips around both Europe and America. He died in London in 1925.

Although Sargent is predominantly remembered for his portrait work, he also painted many watercolour landscape scenes. 'Stable at Cuenca' is an oil on canvas and was purchased for the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. in 2014.

William Sidney Mount, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Henry Siddons Mowbray were all American artists born in the 19th century.

Answer: Sir Edwin Landseer

Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873) was renowned for his paintings of animals, particularly horses and dogs. One of his best known paintings is 'The Monarch of the Glen', which shows a stag standing in the Scottish Highlands. Landseer was also a gifted sculptor and perhaps his most famous works are the bronze lions which surround the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London. He was knighted in 1850 but subsequently suffered from mental ill-health and was declared insane shortly before his death. Landseer was a famous figure in Victorian Britain; his death triggered public mourning and he was granted burial in St Paul's Cathedral (which was also the final resting place of Lord Nelson).

'Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania and Bottom.' was painted around 1850, as the result of a commission by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the famous Victorian engineer. It was bequeathed to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia in 1932.

The incorrect options are all artists who have painted scenes from Shakespeare's plays. William Hogarth painted 'Scene from Shakespeare's The Tempest'; William Holmes Sullivan painted 'Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 1, the Assassination' (amongst others); and Francis Wheatley painted several scenes including 'A Scene in Twelfth Night, Act III'.

Answer: John Constable

The exact history of the painting 'The Cottage in a Cornfield' is unknown due to the existence of several similarly titled works by the same artist, but it is believed to have been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1833. The painting is tentatively dated 1817-1833 as it is clear that it was begun well before the date of its exhibition, with the donkey in particular being based on a drawing dated to 1815. The painting was bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1888 by three of Constable's seven children.

Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds were renowned portrait painters of the 18th century, although Gainsborough was also born in the county of Suffolk and produced many landscape paintings. Joseph Mallord William Turner worked mainly in the early 19th century, producing landscape and, perhaps most famously, seascape pictures.

Answer: William Holman Hunt

'The Triumph of the Innocents' dates to 1883-1884 although it is believed that Hunt began work on the painting during an earlier visit to the Holy Land. Hunt is particularly renowned for his religious paintings, one of which, 'The Light of the World', was the inspiration for Sir Arthur Sullivan's (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) oratorio of the same name.

William Holman Hunt was born in London in 1827 and was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 along with John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Pre-Raphaelites initially focused on producing detailed, brightly coloured, and almost photographic quality paintings although the movement later split with Hunt and Millais advocating realism while Rossetti preferred a medieval style. Pre-Raphaelitism also encompassed other art forms, including literature (particularly poetry), textiles and pottery.

Claude Monet was a founder of the Impressionist art movement, Georges Seurat developed the pointillism style of painting and Georges Braque was a pioneer of Cubism.

Answer: Jean-Francois Millet

Jean-Francois Millet was born in a farming community in Gruchy, France in 1814, which perhaps goes some way to explaining his fascination with painting agricultural scenes. Millet is generally categorised as a realist painter, but more specifically he was a founding member of the Barbizon school, which was noted for producing paintings of natural scenes. The school took its name from the village of Barbizon in northern France, where Millet died in 1875.

'Potato Planters', painted around 1861, was one of several works by Millet that were exhibited at the International Exposition, held in Paris in 1867. This was a world fair with over 50,000 exhibitors representing 42 countries. The painting was gifted to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1917.

The incorrect options were all French painters who were members of the Barbizon school.

Answer: Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro is generally remembered as one of the key Impressionist painters of the 19th century, having works included in all of the Impressionist exhibitions held in Paris between 1874 and 1886. However, before the end of his career he tired of the Impressionist style and his departure heralded the end of the movement. In his later works he experimented with different styles and methods of painting, including pointillism.

'Donkey Ride at La Roche-Guyon' dates from around 1865 - before the start of Impressionism - when Pissarro was working closely with painters such as Monet and Cezanne. At this time his realist style led to many of his paintings being refused by the highly influential Salon, the official exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts that was originally set up and patronised by the French royal family.

Corot and Melbye were acknowledged by Pissarro as influences on his work. Pissarro was, in turn, a mentor to van Gogh.

Answer: Paul Gauguin

Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French painter and member of the Post-Impressionist movement, and is particularly remembered for his volatile friendship with the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Gauguin spent the latter part of 1888 painting at van Gogh's home in Arles, France. Van Gogh prepared for the visit by painting his famous series of sunflower pictures, while Gauguin reciprocated by painting 'The Painter of Sunflowers: Portrait of Vincent van Gogh'.

Gauguin became estranged from his wife and family when he became a full-time artist in 1885. In later life he moved to French Polynesia in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He lived first in Tahiti, before moving onto the Marquesas Islands. Gauguin died of a morphine overdose just before starting a one month prison sentence for libeling the governor of French Polynesia while supporting the native population against their colonialist rulers.

Duchamp, O'Keeffe and Pollock were all artists active in the 20th century.