Studies for After the Flood, commissioned by King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy and shown at the Exhibition held in Paris in 1867, where it obtained the gold medal. In the final work, elements of the “exotic”, which the painter had probably witnessed in France, are integrated with a background story from the Bible.

This work won the silver medal at the Paris exhibition of 1867. It represents the historical fall of Gualtieri di Brienne Duke of Athens and controversial tyrant of Florence (1342‒3). This theme, which the artist had been studying since 1854, is a metaphorical representation of political ambition and national identity against foreign domination.

This work (commissioned in 1869 to mark the opening of the Suez Canal) represents an interesting example of an Occidental artist commissioned by an Islamic patron. The huge painting, presented at exhibition held in Vienna in 1873, realistically depicts the religious procession carrying gifts from Cairo to the Ka’aba at Mecca.

In this complex work by Morelli, exhibited at the exhibition held in Paris in 1878, the Orientalist component, linked with intense elements of verismo or realism, enhances a strong, mystic, but at the same time, erotic, tension of the hagiographic tale. The painting was probably inspired by Gustave Flaubert’s 1874 La tentation de Saint-Antoine (The Temptation of Saint Anthony).

Commissioned by the Kingdom of Serbia and shown at the exhibition held in Paris in 1900, the painting won a gold medal. To prepare the historical subject, Jovanovic travelled for two years throughout Vienna, Constantinople, Venice, Skopje and in Kosovo and Metohija, and then used a plein air technique to depict this most epic historical landmark of the nation.

The painting, commissioned by King Aleksandar Obrenović for the Paris exhibition of 1900, represents the inevitable fall of the town which is under attack by the Ottoman Turks. While it was rejected beforehand by the exhibition committee on account of its excessively violent realism, a largely Serbian audience flocked in thousands to admire the work.