Rhinoceroses, lions and mammoth feature on the walls of the Chauvet cave, in southern France

The three Limburg brothers illustrate for the duke of Berry the Très Riches Heures, one of the masterpieces of International Gothic

Étienne Chevalier commissions from Jean Fouquet a series of illustrations for his Book of Hours

Leonardo da Vinci moves to France, on the invitation of Francis I

Rubens completes a great narrative sequence of twenty-one paintings to celebrate the achievements of Marie de Médicis

Jean-Antoine Watteau paints the most splendid shop sign in history, for his friend Gersaint

French painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin returns to the subject matter that first took his interest, still life

French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard wins the cherished Prix de Rome at the age of 20

15-year-old Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun earns enough from painting portraits to support the rest of her family

Jacques-Louis David, establishing a reputation with his severe classical paintings, is elected to the French academy

The painter Jacques-Louis David sketches the events in the Versailles tennis court

Bonaparte Crossing the Alps (in 1800) is the first of several paintings by Jacques-Louis David celebrating the future emperor

French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres moves to Rome and lives there for 18 years

Jacques-Louis David, unmistakably identified as Napoleon's painter, is banished from France after the fall of the emperor and moves to Brussels

French painter Théodore Géricault begins a two-year visit to Britain

The French painter Gustave Courbet moves from his native town of Ornans to Paris

Young French artists Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir paint together in the open air at La Grenouillère, developing the Impressionist style

French part-time painter Henri Rousseau becomes known as Douanier ('customs officer') Rousseau because of his paid employment

French artist Claude Monet, fleeing from the Franco-Prussian War, arrives in London

French painter Edgar Degas finds inspiration in the onstage and backstage world of ballet dancers

A group of French artists, including Renoir, Monet and Degas, exhibit their work independently in the Paris studio of the photographer Nadar

French critic Louis Leroy uses the term 'impressionism' to ridicule Monet's Impression, Sunrise, and unwittingly names a movement

French artist Claude Monet moves to Giverny, where he creates and paints a famous lily pond

Leaving his family in Copenhagen, French artist Paul Gauguin returns to Paris to paint full-time

French painter Georges Seurat develops the dotted style of impressionism that becomes known as Pointillism