What makes an artwork a masterpiece? Why a masterpiece can be worth millions of dollars? The book answers these fundamental questions which many, non-experts of art, asked themselves at least once in their life. It includes, for each of the 50 masterpieces considered, a detailed description and a photo which unveil, in just 60 seconds read, history, meaning, curiosities, anecdotes, enigmas and artistic techniques. A comprehensive and simplified analysis of all the most important and the most up-to-date sources projecting the reader in fantastic “journey through the time of art” which starts from the Riace Bronzes (450 A.C.) and the most famous Greek sculptures, touches the best masterpieces of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Van Gogh and many others, and terminates with Picasso’s Guernica (1937). List of the 50 masterpieces explained: 1. Riace Bronzes (unknown artist) 2. Winged Victory of Samothrace ( Pythokritos ) 3. Venus of Milo ( Alexandros of Antioch ) 4. Arnolfini Portrait (Jan van Eyck) 5. Lamentation of Christ (Andrea Mantegna) 6. Primavera (Sandro Botticelli) 7. Birth of Venus (Sandro Botticelli) 8. The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci) 9. Salvator Mundi (Leonardo da Vinci) 10. The Pietà (Michelangelo) 11. David (Michelangelo) 12. The School of Athens (Raphael) 13. Creation of Adam (Michelangelo) 14. La Donna Velata (Raphael) 15. The Gioconda or Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci) 16. The Venus of Urbin (Titian) 17. Basket of Fruit (Caravaggio) 18. Ecce Homo, the intriguing story of the Caravaggio discovered in Spain in 2021 19. Apollo e Daphne (Gian Lorenzo Bernini) 20. The Consequences of War (Pieter Paul Rubens) 21. The Night Watch (Rembrandt) 22. Las Meninas (Diego Velàzquez) 23. The Girl with the Pearl Earring (Jan Vermeer) 24. The Lacemaker (Jan Vermeer) 25. The Swing (Jean-Honoré Fragonard) 26. Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss (Antonio Canova) 27. Third of May 1808 (Francisco Goya) 28. Grande Odalisque (Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres) 29. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (Caspar David Friedrich) 30. Liberty Leading the People (Eugène Delacroix) 31. The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Katsushika Hokusai) 32. The Ninth Wave (Ivan Konstantinovič Ajvazovskij) 33. The Gleaners (Jean-François Millet) 34. The Luncheon on the Grass (Edouard Manet) 35. Whistler’s Mother (James Abbott McNeill Whistler) 36. Dance at Moulin De La Galette (Pierre-Auguste Renoir) 37. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande-Jatte (Georges Seurat) 38. Cafe’ Terrace at Night (Vincent van Gogh) 39. The Lady of Shalott (John William Waterhouse) 40. Starry Night (Vincent van Gogh) 41. The Scream (Edvard Munch) 42. Flaming June (Frederic Leighton) 43. The Sleeping Gypsy (Henri Russeau) 44. Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (Paul Gauguin) 45. The Artist’s Garden in Giverny (Claude Monet) 46. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (Pablo Picasso) 47. The Kiss (Gustav Klimt) 48. The Enigma of the Hour (Giorgio de Chirico) 49. The Persistence of Memory (Salvador Dalì) 50. Guernica (Pablo Picasso)