War Paintings for Sale

What counts as a war painting

Most of the works on this page belong to the genre art historians call history painting. History painting is defined by its subject matter rather than by any style or period, and a history painting shows a moment inside a narrative rather than a static subject the way a portrait or a still life does. Battle scenes are the part of that genre where the narrative is a campaign: an advance, a stand, a surrender, the morning after.

That is why a war painting collection crosses styles. Goya is Romantic, David is Neoclassical, Turner paints weather more than tactics, and Bierstadt paints a picket line in Virginia the way he paints a mountain. The subject holds the group together, not the brushwork.

Where to start if you only want one

If the room is formal, start with the sea. Joseph Mallord William Turner gives you the subject at a distance, and a Trafalgar canvas reads as weather before it reads as war. If the room is a study, start with Goya, and hang the two Madrid canvases left to right in the order of the dates. If the subject matters more than the period, start with the Delaware crossing, which needs no caption for an American audience. And if you are furnishing a hotel or a club, pick three canvases from the same museum country and keep one frame model across all three, which is what most designers order.

Before you order a war painting

Are these war paintings hand-painted or printed? Hand-painted. Every canvas is painted in oil by a studio artist, and you approve a photo of the finished painting before it leaves the studio.

Can I order a pair, like the Second and Third of May 1808? Yes. The two Goya canvases are the same size in the original and can be ordered in the same size and frame here, which is how most people hang them.

Are the originals in museums? Most are. Oath of the Horatii is on display in the Louvre in Paris, and the rest hang in national collections across Europe and the United States. What you order here is a reproduction of the painting, credited to the artist who painted the original.