Paintings popping up in culture

Running from 2004-2012, Desperate Housewives was a scandalous drama, featuring seemingly perfect housewives on Wisteria Lane who were hiding many secrets. But do you remember which National Gallery painting is animated in the opening credits?

It's none other than one of our most popular artworks, 'The Arnolfini Portrait' by Jan van Eyck, 1434.

Other artworks featured in the credits are 'Adam and Eve' by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1526, 'American Gothic' by Grant Wood, 1930, and 'Campbell's Soup Cans' by Andy Warhol, 1962.

Have you ever noticed the stamping foot in the opening animation of Monty Python's Flying Circus and thought it looked familiar?

Next time you're in the Gallery, take a closer look at Bronzino's 'An Allegory with Venus and Cupid', and in particular at Cupid's foot. 

Python member Terry Gilliam was drawn to the foot on a visit to the Gallery, and borrowed it for these now iconic opening titles, as, in the words of Terry himself, "what better way than to be crushed than by love". Find out more from Terry on his inspiration.

Ali Smith's novel 'How to Be Both' tells two stories, hundreds of years apart. One focuses on George, who at just 16 is dealing with the death of her mother. The other is centred on Francesco del Cossa, an Italian Renaissance artist. The novel references Gallery painting 'Saint Vincent Ferrer' by Francesco del Cossa numerous times throughout.

But the order in which you read the two stories will vary, as copies are printed with either George or Francesco's stories first, at random. 

Fans of indie rock icons Vampire Weekend and the Gallery's collection have a treat in store. Their music video for 'Classical' is bursting at the seams with National Gallery paintings.

In just the first minute of the video, glimpses of many paintings can be seen over lead singer Ezra Koenig's shoulder, including Sebastiano del Piombo's 'The Raising of Lazarus', Lorenzo Lotto's 'Portrait of a Woman inspired by Lucretia', Luca Giordano's 'Perseus turning Phineus and his Followers to Stone' and Henri Rousseau's 'Surprised!'. 

How many more can you spot?

Following the somewhat monochrome choice for their first album cover, New Order's second album cover was a floral affair, featuring a reproduction of 'A Basket of Roses' by Ignace-Henri-Théodore Fantin-Latour, 1890. The album was released in 1983, with a heavier use of synthesisers than their debut.

The cover was designed by graphic designer Peter Saville who created many album artworks for artists signed to Factory records, including Joy Division and New Order. 

One of the joys of spending time with the Gallery's collection is building on your art history knowledge. And where better to put this to the test than on the art round of University Challenge. 

It's one of the toughest quizzes on British TV, that pits university students against each other with devilishly difficult questions. When an episode includes an art round, it is quite common to come across a painting from the collection, and it's such a thrill to get one right!

University Challenge semi-finalist Bobby Seagull shares his tips for answering every art question right in the quiz in this article.

The first James Bond film 'Dr. No' was released in 1962. If you know your Gallery history, you might know about a theft that took place in 1961, of Francisco de Goya's 'The Duke of Wellington'. These two facts seem unrelated, but there’s a cheeky moment in the movie that connects them.

When Sean Connery's Bond is in Dr. No's lair, a painting catches his eye. It's none other than the famous Goya!

Viewers in the 1960s may well have been familiar with the theft, which caught the media's attention at the time. Although we later found out who stole the work – hint: it wasn’t a cartoonish supervillain – this is a fun nod to the Gallery's collection and history in an iconic Bond movie. 

In their music video for '70 Million' the band Hold Your Horses recreated many iconic artworks, using themselves! Beginning with Leonardo da Vinci's 'The Last Supper', the video is a whistle stop, chaotic tour through the history of art.

At around the 2 minute mark, the band recreate Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's 'Salome receives the Head of John the Baptist'.

The video game 'Assassin's Creed Syndicate' involves the player entering the criminal underworld of Victorian London. 

As the Gallery is over 200 years old, we were well established in Victorian London, and feature as part of this playable historical world, with a locked chest somewhere on site.

Another second album that features a Gallery artwork comes from Canadian band Crash Test Dummies. They released 'God Shuffled his Feet' in 1993, with album artwork featuring their faces superimposed onto Titian's 'Bacchus and Ariadne'.