# The 16 Most Famous Portraits in Art History

> Faces everyone has seen and most people cannot name the painter of. Some hang behind bulletproof glass; one is a farm couple with a pitchfork.

*By YPB Team · Published August 16, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-16-most-famous-portraits-in-art-history*

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## Current results (0 votes)

1. **Mona Lisa**
   Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of Lisa Gherardini, painted from about 1503 and now in the Louvre.
2. **Girl with a Pearl Earring**
   Vermeer's tronie of an unnamed girl turning to face the viewer, painted around 1665.
3. **The Arnolfini Portrait**
   Jan van Eyck's 1434 double portrait, famous for the convex mirror behind the couple.
4. **Whistler's Mother**
   Whistler's 1871 study in grey and black of his mother in profile.
5. **Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear**
   Van Gogh's 1889 self-portrait made weeks after he cut off part of his ear.
6. **Las Meninas**
   Velázquez's 1656 group portrait of the Infanta Margarita, her maids and the painter himself.
7. **Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I**
   Klimt's gold-leaf 1907 portrait, once looted by the Nazis and returned in 2006.
8. **American Gothic**
   Grant Wood's 1930 painting of a farmer and his daughter in front of a Gothic window.
9. **The Blue Boy**
   Gainsborough's 1770 full-length portrait of a young man in blue satin.
10. **Portrait of Henry VIII**
   Holbein's image of the Tudor king, planted square-on, that fixed his face for five centuries.
11. **The Laughing Cavalier**
   Frans Hals's 1624 portrait of a smiling officer with an extravagantly embroidered sleeve.
12. **Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace**
   Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait with a hummingbird, a monkey and a black cat.
13. **Napoleon Crossing the Alps**
   Jacques-Louis David's 1801 propaganda portrait of Bonaparte on a rearing horse.
14. **Portrait of Madame X**
   Sargent's 1884 portrait of Virginie Gautreau that scandalised the Paris Salon.
15. **Lady with an Ermine**
   Leonardo's portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, held in Kraków and rarely lent abroad.
16. **Self-Portrait at 28**
   Dürer's 1500 self-portrait, painted frontally in a pose reserved for images of Christ.

Tags: art, paintings, portraits