Korovin made a name for himself with his stage design for Savva Mamontov's performances (Faust, Aida, etc.). And here's a story told by the stage designer and artist Alexandr Golovin.
Korovin's decorations were huge and the artist got very tired working on them and somehow fell asleep right in his studio, in the middle of the scenery. While sleeping, he accidentally knocked over a pot with white paint which stained the canvases. And while Korovin was sleeping, the carpenters took his decorations to the theatre. The artist rushed there and hid behind a chair, waiting for the reaction of the picky and strict Mamontov. The curtain went up, and everyone gasped in amazed delight – the white flowers decorating the scenery were incredibly beautiful. Mamontov rushed to shake Korovin's hand, congratulating him with extraordinary creative success. "The flowers really came up great," said Korovin calmly, seeing those white spots for the first time.

Henri Matisse gained fame quickly, but his financial situation remained precarious. And only his acquaintance with Russian patrons and collectors Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov helped him to get out of poverty once and for all.
In 1908, an art connoisseur Sergei Shchukin commissioned him two panels, which he intended to hung on the walls of his Moscow mansion. It was then when the first Dance appeared. Shchukin invited Matisse to Russia, where the artist was completely overwhelmed by Russian icons.

Paul Cézanne had his own creative method of work. He was always dissatisfied with himself and therefore worked for a very long time, and his models had to stay in one position for long hours. And the artist could leave a work before it was finished because it wasn’t perfect! So, Ambroise Vollard posed for Cézanne for 115 (!) times, but he saw his portrait. Cézanne postponed the painting to get back to it later when he "would achieve something". Well, except for he liked, "how the shirt chest is painted". Cézanne could only let his model to take a break under the force of the argument that the model would get tired and therefore become a bad poser. At the same time, the artist demanded complete silence at work: even the dog's barking could prevent him.

US President Dwight Eisenhower became interested in painting before moving into the Oval Office. He claimed to be influenced by the prime minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill in his decision to take up the paintbrush. While he produced over 250 known works in his lifetime, the 34th President of the United States never took it too seriously. In a conversation with reporter Richard Cohen, after being asked about the symbolism in one of his pieces, he replied: "Let’s get something straight here, Cohen. They would have burned this [expletive] a long time ago if I weren’t the president of the United States."

Rembrandt began to accept students, barely out of adolescence. The first apprentice of the 21-year-old painter was Gerrit Dou, who at that time was not yet 15 years old. It seems that Rembrandt never took beginners. A pupil’s parents had to pay the artist an annual tuition fee of 100 guilders. Rembrandt’s students learned by copying their master’s works and, later, by painting and drawing their own variations based on them. They had to work in an attic in separate cubicles partitioned by sailcloth or paper.

Hurrying from Germany in 1914, Wassily Kandinsky left most of his paintings to Gabriele Münter, with whom he was betrothed. A few years later, he returned to Germany with his wife Nina, and asked Münter to return his works. But Gabriele refused, for he promised to marry her! Now she left his canvases for herself. Kandinsky led the trial for 5 years, but eventually he officially recognized hi ex-bride Münter as the legal owner of the paintings. She did not sell the pictures, and at the age of 80, in 1957, she transferred the whole collection (54 works!) to the Lenbachhaus Gallery.

Once fascinated by painting, Churchill could no longer live without this hobby, drawing wherever he could. In March 1921, on arriving to Egypt at the Cairo Conference, Churchill decided to paint the pyramids. He decided to ride a camel to the desert. However, sitting up on the "two-humped horse", Winston lost his balance and fell to the ground, which caused him a ragged wound. However, the journey continued, and yet he made sketches of the Sahara and the pyramids.

One of the finest and most famous works created by Alfons Mucha is a gold bracelet called Médée Snake. The snake wrapped around the ring wraps the wrist, and the snake's sting passes into the ring through a thin chain. For the first time the image of this bracelet appeared on the playbill for the Médée play. The actress liked it so much that she commissioned jeweller to create a snake bracelet and a ring embellished with gemstones for her to wear on stage. This bracelet shows that his creator was an artist, for the beautiful decoration has no practical application. After all, in the world, there is no such thin and elegant hand, on which it could be put on! The Médée Snake is called "jewelery of the century".

Alphonse Mucha made his way to his luck for a long time, and he became famous literally in one night. His success was brought by the unsurpassed Sarah Bernhardt, who approved his poster sketch, in which she acted in main role in the play "Gismonda". After the posters were spread, Mucha instantly became famous. It is rumored that the Parisians liked his posters so much that they bought additional copies from the distributors, and if they did not manage to agree with them, they stole posters, cutting them off in the dark from the walls with razor blades. Well, turning ordinary objects into works of art was a special gift of the famous artist.

Artist Domenico Beccafumi wanted to please his customer, collecting all the Roman attractions, including the Colosseum, in one picture. He also took care of an entertaining story. "The Story of Papirius" is the story of a boy who was drawn to debate and vote in the Senate and had to keep a secret about what he had heard. But at home, his mother came up with questions, so he had to invent on the go, and he said that a very delicate matter was discussed: what is better to allow - men have two wives or women to have two husbands? Mom immediately spread the rumour around the city, and a women's rebellion began (they didn’t really like the first option)!

The first believed professional art dealer, the famous art patron Paul Durand-Ruel saw his mission in supporting and developing real art, and, importantly, educating the audience. Between 1871 and 1922, Paul Durand-Ruel acquired about 12,000 Impressionist works, including more than 1000 works by Monet, 1500 works by Renoir, 800 works by Pissarro, 400 works by Degas, Cassatt and Sisley, and about 200 arworks by Manet.

Velasquez was a court painter: successful, but not as famous as he would have liked. First, only those admitted to the palace could appreciate his paintings: authors who painted pictures and frescoes for public temples were much more popular. Secondly, the Spaniard Velasquez was almost unknown in Italy, which he considered the birthplace of the beauty itself. One day, having arrived to Rome, Velasquez painted a portrait of his servant, handed him this portrait, and sent to go to the homes of local aristocrats and artists, saying, look, here I am the original, Pareja the Moor, and here is my portrait by Velasquez! It had effect! This portrait was eventually exhibited in the Pantheon, and Velasquez received orders from the Italian noblemen.

During his forced resignation in 1915, the famous British Prime Minister Winston Churchill fell into such a depression that his wife feared that he would commit suicide. This continued until his relative interested him in painting. Gradually, the Prime Minister not only forgot about depression, but also carried this passion throughout his life.

In 2015, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts issued an apology and cancelled a program, displaying Claude Monet's painting of his wife and giving the visitors the opportunity to put on a kimono similar to the one depicted in the painting, and encouraging them to pose for photographs. Before that, the painting La Japonaise. Camille Monet in Japanese Costume was shown all over Japan where the viewers posing in a kimono was an organic part of the special program. What could go wrong in America? And yet, an innocent event caused protest actions and accusations of cultural insensibility: some of the visitors noticed there "Orientalist flirtations with the exotic".

They say, manuscripts do not burn, but pictures do... In his youth, Modigliani was so poor that he paid with his pictures to the hostess of the cafe, where he boarded daily. The kind woman always agreed to "barter", but at the same time (o woe to us, the admirers of Modigliani!) she actually used them to kindle her stove. We’ll never know how many paintings by the famous artist were burned in such a villainous manner!

After Ruben's death in 1640, van Dyck received a letter from the King of Spain. The artist had almost no doubts he would be offered a place at court. But Philip IV asked him to complete unfinished Rubens' commission first. "He managed to humiliate me even from his grave!" – said van Dyck discontentedly. He only had 12 months to live: a year after Rubens ' death, on December 9, 1641, the 42-year-old van Dyck died of a mysterious illness and was buried the same day as his daughter Justinia's baptism.

In France, in April 2015, a picture of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, a famous French artist of the 19th century, was discovered – a true miracle of the stock control conducted by Emmanuelle Busline, curator and adviser on historical monuments of the region. In the chapel attic of the former Hotel Dieu Hospital, a large canvas of 4.3 by 3.4 meters was found, rolled up and covered with dust – an image of the Madonna with a baby in her arms and a kneeling king. A well-known plot for the artist!

It is believed that Ingres presented the picture to the city in 1826, when he finished it. It hung in the local church of Saint-Désiré, and in 1936, when the restoration began in the temple, it was transferred to the former hospital and forgotten. It is believed that this is the second version of "The Vow of Louis XIII". The leader of European academicism created the first version in 1824 by the order of the King of France, Charles X.

Queen Victoria made intimate sketches of members of the Royal Family that she never expected or wanted the public to see. When a journalist leaked them in the, she took him to court in what is one of the earliest examples of a public figure going after the media. So her first solo exhibition was arranged only 111 years after her death – in 2012. The public had the opportunity to see sweet sketches of her daughter at bath time and in her royal finery. The drawings displayed a talent that few people were aware that the Queen possessed. By the way, her descendant – Charles, Prince of Wales is also interested in drawing. He creates scenic watercolour landscapes of locations worldwide, including Australia, Jamaica, Asia, and of course, the Royal Gardens.

Once Auguste Renoir and Édouard Manet painted next to each other. They stayed in Claude Monet's house in Argenteuil and set up their easels in the garden, while the owner was doing his chores. After this joint plein-air, Édouard Manet, rather embarrassingly, asked Claude to somehow suggest Renoir to quit painting. The poor fellow had no talent at all!