Required works of art for AP Art History
Below is the list of the 250 required works of art for the AP Art History course and exam. Each work has links to videos, images, and essays (and we regularly add and update material). Beth and I hope these free resources are both helpful and enjoyable. If you have a moment, please tell us a little about how Smarthistory has made a difference. You can leave a note on this form. Thanks!
This same list can be found on Khan Academy (same content, different site).
Content Area 1
Global Prehistory
30,000-500 B.C.E.
Content Area 1
Global Prehistory
30,000-500 B.C.E.
- Apollo 11 stones (essay, image, additional resources)
- Great Hall of Bulls (essay, image, additional resources)
- Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine (essay, image, additional resources)
- Running horned woman (essay, image, additional resources)
- Bushel with ibex motifs (video, images, additional resources)
- Anthropomorphic stele (essay, image, additional resources)
- Jade cong (video, article, image, additional resources)
- Stonehenge (essay, video, image 1, image 2, additional resources)
- Ambum Stone (essay, image, additional resources)
- Tlatilco female figurine (video, essay, image, additional resources)
- Terracotta fragment (essay, image, additional resources)
- White Temple and its ziggurat (essay, image 1, image 2 additional resources)
- Palette of King Narmer (essay, images, additional resources)
- Statues of votive figures, from the Temple at Eshnunna (video, images, additional resources)
- Seated Scribe (video, images, additional resources)
- Standard of Ur from the Royal Tombs at Ur (video, essay, images, additional resources)
- Great Pyramids of Giza (essay, images, additional resources)
a. Pyramid of Khufu (essay, additional resources)
b. Pyramid of Khafre and the Great Sphinx (essay, additional resources)
c. Pyramid of Menkaura (essay, additional resources) - King Menkaura and Queen (essay, images, additional resources)
- The Law Code Stele of Hammurabi (essay/video, images, additional resources)
- Temple of Amun-Re and Hypostyle Hall (essay, video, images, additional resources)
- Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (video, images, additional resources)
- Akhenaton, Nefertiti, and three daughters (video, images, additional resources)
- Tutankhamun’s tomb, innermost coffin (essay, images, additional resources)
- Last judgment of Hu-Nefer (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Lamassu, citadel of Sargon II, Dur Sharrukin (video, images, additional resources)
- Athenian Agora (video, images, additional resources)
- Anavysos Kouros (video, images, additional resources)
- Peplos Kore from the Acropolis (video, images, additional resources)
- Sarcophagus of the Spouses (video, essay, images, additional resources)
- Audience Hall (apadana) of Darius and Xeres (essay, images, additional resources)
Related: Column capital, audience hall (apadana) of Darius at Susa (video, images) - Temple of Minerva (Veii), sculpture of Apollo (essay/video, images, additional resources)
- Tomb of the Triclinium (essay, images, additional resources)
- Niobides Krater (video, images, additional resources)
- Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Acropolis
a. Parthenon (video/essay, video 2, images, additional resources)
i. Phidias, Parthenon sculpture (pediments, metopes and frieze) (video, images, additional resources)
ii. Plaque of the Ergastines (video, images, additional resources)
b. Victory adjusting her sandal, Temple of Athena Nike (video, images, additional resources) - Grave Stele of Hegeso (video, images, additional resources)
- Winged Victory of Samothrace (video, images, additional resources)
- Great Altar of Zeus and Athena at Pergamon (video, images, additional resources)
- House of the Vettii (essay, images, additional resources)
- Alexander Mosaic, House of the Faun, Pompeii (video, images, additional resources)
- Seated Boxer (video, images, additional resources)
- Head of a Roman Patrician (essay, images, additional resources)
Related: Veristic male portrait (video, additional resources) - Augustus of Prima Porta (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater) (video, images, additional resources)
- Forum of Trajan
a. Forum (video/essay, images, additional resources)
b. Column (video/essay, images, additional resources)
c. Markets (video, images, additional resources) - Pantheon (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus (video, images, additional resources)
- Catacomb of Priscilla (Greek Chapel, Orant, Good Shepherd frescos) (video, images, additional resources)
- Santa Sabina (video, essay, images, additional resources)
- Vienna Genesis
a. Jacob Wrestling the Angel (video, images, additional resources)
b. Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well (essay, images) - San Vitale (Justinian and Theodora panels) (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Hagia Sophia (video/essay, images, additional resources)
a. Theotokos mosaic (video, images, additional resources)
b. Deësis mosaic (video, images, additional resources)
c. Hagia Sophia as a mosque (video, images, additional resources) - Merovingian looped fibulae (essay, images, additional resources)
- Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George (essay, images, additional resources)
- Lindisfarne Gospels, St. Matthew, cross-carpet page; St. Luke incipit page (video, essay, images, additional resources)
- Great Mosque, Córdoba, Spain (essay, images, additional resources)
- Pyxis of al-Mughira (essay, images, additional resources)
- Church of Sainte-Foy and Reliquary (essay, images, additional resources)
- Bayeux Tapestry (essay, images, additional resources)
- Chartres Cathedral (images, additional resources)
a. early history, relic, royal portal and jamb figures (video, images, additional resources)
b. interior, stained glass (video, images, additional resources)
c. flying buttresses, transept, north rose and porch (video, images, additional resources) - Dedication Page with Blanche of Castile and King Louis IX of France, (essay, image, additional resources) and Scenes from the Apocalypse (essay, image, additional resources)—both from Bibles moralisée (moralized bibles)
- Röttgen Pietà (video/essay, images)
- Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel, including Lamentation (essay, additional resources)
a. Introduction (video)
b. fresco cycle (video)
c. Lamentation (video)
d. Last Judgment (video) - Golden Haggadah (essay, images, additional resources 1, additional resources 2)
- Alhambra (essay, additional resources)
- Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece) (video, images, additional resources)
- Pazzi Chapel, Filipo Brunellschi (video, images, additional resources)
- The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck (video, related essay, images, additional resources)
- David, Donatello (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Palazzo Rucellai, Leon Battista Alberti (video/essay, additional resources)
- Madonna and Child with Two Angels, Fra Filippo Lippi (video, image, additional resources)
- Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli (video, image, additional resources)
- Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci (video/essay, image, additional resources)
- Adam and Eve, Albrecht Dürer (essay, image, additional resources)
- Sistine Chapel ceiling and altar wall frescos, Michelangelo
a. ceiling (video/essay, study for sibyl video, additional resources)
b. altar wall (video/essay, additional resources) - School of Athens, Raphael (video, images, additional resources)
- Isenheim Altarpiece, Matthias Grünewald (essay, images, additional resources)
- Entombment of Christ, Jacobo da Pontormo (video, image, additional resources)
- Allegory of Law and Grace, Lucas Cranach the Elder (essay, images, additional resources)
- Venus of Urbino, Titian (video, image, additional resources)
- Frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza (essay, images, additional resources)
- Il Gesù, including Triumph of the Name of Jesus ceiling fresco (video, image 1, image 2, additional resources)
- Hunters in the Snow, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (video and essay, image, additional resources)
- Mosque of Selim II (essay, images additional resources)
- Calling of Saint Matthew, Caravaggio (video, images, additional resources)
- Henri IV Receives the Portrait of of Marie de’Medici, from the Marie de’Medici Cycle, Peter Paul Rubens (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Self-Portrait with Saskia, Rembrandt van Rijn (essay, image, additional resources)
- San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Francesco Borromini (video, images, additional resources)
- Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (video, images, additional resources)
- Angel with Arquebus, Asiel Timor Dei, Master of Calamarca (essay, image, additional resources)
- Las Meninas, Diego Velazquez (video, image, additional resources)
- Woman Holding a Balance, Johannes Vermeer (video, image, additional resources)
- The Palace at Versailles (essay, images and maps, additional resources)
- Screen with Siege of Belgrade and hunting scene (video, images, additional resources)
- The Virgin of Guadalupe, Miguel González (essay, video/essay, additional resources)
- Fruit and Insects, Rachel Ruysch (video, images, additional resources)
- Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo, attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Tête à Tête, from Marriage a la Mode, William Hogarth (video, images, additional resources)
- Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Miguel Cabrera (essay, image, additional resources)
- A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery, Joseph Wright of Derby (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Swing, Jean-Honoré Fragonard (video, images, additional resources)
- Monticello, Thomas Jefferson (essay, images additional resources 1, 2)
- The Oath of the Horatii, Jacques-Louis David (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- George Washington, Jean-Antoine Houdon (essay, image, additional resources 1, 2)
- Self-Portrait, Elisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun (essay, image, additional resources)
- Y no hai remedio (And There’s Nothing to Be Done), from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War), plate 15, Francesco de Goya (essay, images, additional resources)
- La Grande Odalisque, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow, Thomas Cole (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Still Life in Studio, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (essay, image, additional resources)
- Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On), Joseph Mallord William Turner (video, images, additional resources)
- Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament), Charles Barry, A.W.N. Pugin (video, images, additional resources)
- The Stonebreakers, Gustave Courbet (essay, image, additional resources 1, 2)
- Nadar elevating Photography to Art, Honoré Daumier (essay, image, additional resources)
- Olympia, Édouard Manet (video, image, additional resources)
- The Saint-Lazare Station, Claude Monet (essay and video, image, additional resources)
- The Horse in Motion, Eadweard Muybridge (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel, José María Velasco (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- The Burghers of Calais, Auguste Rodin (essay, image, 3D image, additional resources)
- The Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Coiffure, Mary Cassatt (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Scream, Edvard Munch (essay, image, additional resources)
- Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, Paul Gauguin (essay, images, additional resources)
- Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building, Louis Sullivan (essay, images, additional resources)
- Mont Sainte-Victoire, Paul Cézanne (video, essay, image, additional resources)
- Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Pablo Picasso (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- The Steerage, Alfred Stieglitz (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Kiss, Gustav Klimt (video, image, additional resources)
- The Kiss, Constantin Brancusi (video, images, additional resources)
- The Portuguese, Georges Braque (essay, images, additional resources)
- The Goldfish, Henri Matisse (essay, image, additional resources)
- Improvisation 28 (second version), Vasily Kandinsky (video, photo,additional resources)
- Self-Portrait as a Soldier, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (essay, image, additional resources)
- Memorial Sheet of Karl Liebknecht, Käthe Kollwitz (essay, image, additional resources)
- Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier (essay, images, additional resources)
- Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow, Piet Mondrian (essay, image, additional resources)
- Illustration from The Results of the First Five-Year Plan, Varvara Stepanova (essay, image, additional resources)
- Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure), Meret Oppenheim (essay, quiz, image, additional resources)
- Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright (essay, plans and elevations, images, additional resources)
- The Two Fridas, Frida Kahlo (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Migration of the Negro, Panel no. 49, Jacob Lawrence (video-short version, video-long version, photo, additional resources)
- The Jungle, Wilfredo Lam (essay, image, additional resources)
- Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Central Park, Diego Rivera (essay, image, additional resources)
- Fountain, Marcel Duchamp (video, images, additional resources)
- Woman I, Willem de Kooning (video, images, additional resources)
- Seagram Building, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson (video, images, additional resources)
- Marilyn Diptych, Andy Warhol (essay, image, additional resources)
- Narcissus garden, Yayoi Kusama (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Bay, Helen Frankenthaler (essay, quiz, image, additional resources)
- Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, Claes Oldenburg (essay, photo, additional resources)
- Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson (video and essay, images, additional resources)
- House in New Castle County, Robert Ventura, John Rausch and Denise Scott Brown(essay, photos, additional resources)
- Chavín de Huántar (essay, image, additional resources)
- Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Yaxchilán lintel 25, structure 23 (essay, essay on related lintel, images, additional resources)
- Great Serpent Mound (essay, images, additional resources)
- Templo Mayor, Main Aztec temple (video and essay, images, additional resources)
a. The Coyolxauhqui Stone (video, images, additional resources)
b. Calendar stone (video, image, additional resources)
c. Olmec-style mask (video, images, additional resources) - Ruler’s feather headdress (probably of Moctezuma II) (video, images, additional resources–see page 12)
- City of Cusco (essay, video, images, additional resources)
- Maize cobs (essay, images, additional resources 1, 2)
- City of Machu Picchu (essay, video, photos, additional resources)
- All-T’oqapu Tunic (essay, photo, additional resources)
- Bandolier Bag (essay, photo, additional resources)
- Transformation mask (essay, image, additional resources)
- Painted elk hide, attributed to Cotsiogo (Cadzi Cody) (essay, image, additional resources)
- Black-on-black ceramic vessel, Maria Martínez and Julian Martínez (essay, image, additional resources)
- Conical tower and circular wall of Great Zimbabwe (essay, video, images, additionalresources)
- Great Mosque of Djenné (essay, video, images, additional resources)
- Wall plaque, from Oba’s palace (video, essay, images, additional resources)
- Sika dwa kofi (Golden Stool) (video, image, additional resources)
- Ndop (portrait figure) of King Mishe miShyaang maMbul (essay, image, additional resources)
- Nkisi n’kondi (essay, image, additional resources)
- Female (Pwo) Mask (video, images, additional resources)
- Portrait mask (Mblo) (essay, image, additional resources)
- Bundu mask (video, image, additional resources)
- Ikenga (shrine figure) (video, image, additional resources)
- Lukasa (memory board) (essay, image, additional resources)
- Aka elephant mask (video, images, additional resources)
- Reliquary figure (byeri) (video, images, additional resources)
- Veranda post of enthroned king and senior wife (Opo Ogoga) (related video, image 1, image 2, additional resources)
- Petra, Jordan: Treasury and Great Temple (additional resources)
a. Nabataeans introduction (essay)
b. Petra and The Treasury (essay, images)
c. Petra and the Great Temple (essay, images)
d. UNESCO Siq project (video) - Buddha, Bamiyan (essay, image, video, additional resources 1, 2)
- The Kaaba (essay, images, additional resources)
- Jowo Rinpoche, enshrined in the Jokhang Temple (essay, images, additional resources)
- Dome of the Rock (essay, images, additional resources)
- Great Mosque (Masjid-e Jameh), Isfahan (essay, images, additional resources)
- Folio from a Qur’an (essay, image, additional resources)
- Basin (Baptistère de Saint Louis), Mohammed ibn al-Zain (video, images, additional resources)
- Bahram Gur Fights the Karg, folio from the Great Il-Khanid Shahnama (essay, images, additional resources)
- The Court of Gayumars, folio from Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnama (essay, images, additional resources)
- The Ardabil Carpet (essay, images, additional resources)
- Great Stupa at Sanchi (essay, video, images, additional resources)
- Terracotta warriors from mausoleum of the first Qin emperor of China (essay, video, images, additional resources)
- Funeral banner of Lady Dai (Xin Zhui) (essay, images, additional resources)
- Longmen caves (essay, video, images, additional resources)
- Gold and jade crown (essay, image, additional resources)
- Todai-ji (essay, video, images, additional resources)
- Borobudur (essay, images, additional resources)
- Angkor, the temple of Angkor Wat, the city of Angkor Thom, Cambodia (essay, video, images, additional resources)
- Lakshmana Temple (essay, images, additional resources)
- Travelers among Mountains and Streams, Fan Kuan (essay, image, additional resources)
- Shiva as Lord of Dance (Nataraja) (essay, image, additional resources)
- Night Attack on the Sanjô Palace (essay, images, additional resources)
- The David Vases (video, images, additional resources 1, 2)
- Portrait of Sin Sukju (essay, image, additional resources)
- Forbidden City (video/essay, images, additional resources)
- Ryoan-ji (video/essay, images, additional resources 1, 2)
- Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings, Bichitr (essay, image, additional resources)
- Taj Mahal (essay, images, additional resources)
- White and Red Plum Blossoms, Ogata Korin (essay, image, additional resources 1, 2, 3)
- Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, Katsushika Hokusai (essay, image, additional resources)
- Chairman Mao en Route to Anyuan (essay, image, additional resources)
- Nan Madol (essay)
- Moai on platform (ahu) (video, essay, images, additional resources 1, 2, 3)
- ‘Ahu ‘ula (feather cape) (essay, image, additional resources)
- Staff god (essay, images, additional resources)
- Female deity from Nukuoro (essay, images, additional resources 1, 2, 3)
- Buk mask (video, images, additional resources)
- Hiapo (tapa) (essay, image, additional resources)
- Tamati waka Nene, Gottfried Lindauer (essay, image, additional resources)
- Navigation chart (video, essay, image, additional resources)
- Malangan display and mask (essay, image 1, 2, additional resources)
- Presentation of Fijian mats and tapas cloths to Queen Elizabeth II (essay, image, additional resources 1, 2)
- The Gates, Christo and Jeanne-Claude (essay, images, additional resources)
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Maya Lin (video, images, additional resources)
- Horn Players, Jean-Michel Basquiat (essay, image, additional resources)
- Summer Trees, Song Su-nam (essay, image, additional resources)
- Androgyne III, Magdalena Abakanowicz (essay, images, additional resources)
- A Book from the Sky, Xu Bing (video, images, additional resources)
- Pink Panther, Jeff Koons (essay, images, additional resources)
- Untitled (#228), from the History Portraits series, Cindy Sherman (essay, image, additional resources)
- Dancing at the Louvre, from the series, The French Collection, part 1; #1, Faith Ringgold(essay, image, additional resources)
- Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People), Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (essay, image, additional resources)
- Earth’s Creation, Emily Kame Kngwarreye (essay, image, additional resources)
- Rebellious Silence, from the Women of Allah series, Shirin Neshat (artist); photo by Cynthia Preston (essay, image, additional resources)
- En la Barberia no se Llora (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop), Pepon Osorio (essay, image 1, 2, additional resources)
- Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000), Michel Tuffery (essay, video 1, images, additional resources)
- Electronic Superhighway, Nam June Paik (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Crossing, Bill Viola (essay, image, additional resources)
- Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Frank Gehry (essay, images, additional resources)
- Pure Land, Mariko Mori (essay, image, additional resources)
- Lying with the Wolf, Kiki Smith (essay, image, additional resources)
- Darkytown Rebellion, Kara Walker (essay, image, additional resources)
- The Swing (After Fragonard), Yinka Shonibare (essay, images, additional resources)
- Old Man’s Cloth, El Anatsui (video, essay, image, additional resources)
- Stadia II, Julie Mehretu (essay, image, additional resources)
- Preying Mantra, Wangechi Mutu (essay, image, additional resources)
- Shibboleth, Doris Salcedo (essay, images, additional resources)
- MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Zaha Hadid (video, images, additional resources)
- Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds), Ai Weiwei (video/essay, images, additional resources)
Special thanks to the many art historians and curators who have contributed their expertise as well as our museum partners, the American Museum of Natural History, the Asian Art Museum, The British Museum, The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and Tate.
AP Art History is a registered trademark of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product.
Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Required works of art for AP Art History," in Smarthistory, January 25, 2017, accessed August 7, 2019, https://smarthistory.org/required-works-of-art-for-ap-art-history/.
