31,000 years ago Earliest known paintings
Rhinoceroses, lions and mammoth feature on the walls of the Chauvet cave, in southern France

1412 Very Rich Hours of duke of Berry
The three Limburg brothers illustrate for the duke of Berry the Très Riches Heures, one of the masterpieces of International Gothic

1452 Fouquet does Book of Hours
Étienne Chevalier commissions from Jean Fouquet a series of illustrations for his Book of Hours

1517 Leonardo moves to France
Leonardo da Vinci moves to France, on the invitation of Francis I

1625 Rubens celebrates French queen
Rubens completes a great narrative sequence of twenty-one paintings to celebrate the achievements of Marie de Médicis

1721 Watteau paints shop sign
Jean-Antoine Watteau paints the most splendid shop sign in history, for his friend Gersaint

1751 Chardin specializes in still life
French painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin returns to the subject matter that first took his interest, still life

1752 Fragonard wins Prix de Rome
French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard wins the cherished Prix de Rome at the age of 20

1778 Vigée-Lebrun succeeds as portrait painter
15-year-old Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun earns enough from painting portraits to support the rest of her family

1783 David in French academy
Jacques-Louis David, establishing a reputation with his severe classical paintings, is elected to the French academy

1789 David sketches in tennis court
The painter Jacques-Louis David sketches the events in the Versailles tennis court

1801 David paints heroic exploits of Napoleon
Bonaparte Crossing the Alps (in 1800) is the first of several paintings by Jacques-Louis David celebrating the future emperor

1806 Ingres moves to Rome
French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres moves to Rome and lives there for 18 years

1815 David moves his studio Brussels
Jacques-Louis David, unmistakably identified as Napoleon's painter, is banished from France after the fall of the emperor and moves to Brussels

1820 Géricault moves to Britain
French painter Théodore Géricault begins a two-year visit to Britain

1839 Courbet moves to Paris
The French painter Gustave Courbet moves from his native town of Ornans to Paris

1869 Monet and Renoir paint together
Young French artists Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir paint together in the open air at La Grenouillère, developing the Impressionist style

1869 Rousseau is Le Douanier
French part-time painter Henri Rousseau becomes known as Douanier ('customs officer') Rousseau because of his paid employment

1870 Monet in London
French artist Claude Monet, fleeing from the Franco-Prussian War, arrives in London

1873 Degas inspired by ballet dancers
French painter Edgar Degas finds inspiration in the onstage and backstage world of ballet dancers

1874 First Impressionist exhibition
A group of French artists, including Renoir, Monet and Degas, exhibit their work independently in the Paris studio of the photographer Nadar

1874 Impressionism is named
French critic Louis Leroy uses the term 'impressionism' to ridicule Monet's Impression, Sunrise, and unwittingly names a movement

1883 Monet settles at Giverny
French artist Claude Monet moves to Giverny, where he creates and paints a famous lily pond

1885 Gauguin paints full-time
Leaving his family in Copenhagen, French artist Paul Gauguin returns to Paris to paint full-time

1885 Seurat develops Pointillism
French painter Georges Seurat develops the dotted style of impressionism that becomes known as Pointillism

1886 Van Gogh in Paris
Dutch painter Vincent Willem van Gogh moves from Antwerp to Paris

1888 Van Gogh invites Gauguin to join him
Vincent van Gogh invites Paul Gauguin to come and paint with him at Arles, in the south of France

1889 Van Gogh in psychiatric hospital
Vincent van Gogh enters a psychiatric asylum in St Rémy as a voluntary patient

1901 Picasso's Blue Period
A change of palette by Pablo Picasso takes him into what becomes known as his Blue Period

1905 Luxe, Calme et Volupté
Henri Matisse completes his painting Luxe, Calme et Volupté

1905 Picasso's Rose Period
Pablo Picasso's palette becomes warmer as Blue evolves into Rose

1905 Matisse paints in Collioure
Henri Matisse, in the south of France, paints The Open Window, Collioure, the first of his many works on this theme

1905 The Fauves exhibit in Paris
Matisse, Derain and others, exhibiting in Paris their shockingly colourful new works, are dubbed fauves ("wild beasts") by a critic

1906 Picasso paints Stein
Pablo Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein prefigures cubism in its mask-like treatment of her face

1906 Gauguin retrospective in Paris
A large retrospective exhibition in Paris gives Paul Gauguin a growing posthumous reputation

1907 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a violent transition into cubism, is a turning point in western art

1908 Analytic Cubism
Georges Braque's Houses at L'Estaque introduces analytic Cubism

1908 The word 'cubism' is coined
The French critic Louis Vauxcelles describes Braque's latest landscapes as being composed of cubes, resulting in the term cubism

1910 Matisse's Danse and Musique
Henri Matisse completes two large paintings, La Danse and La Musique, for the staircase of Sergei Shchukin's house in Moscow

1911 Mona Lisa stolen
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre in Paris

1912 Nude Descending a Staircase
Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2 creates a stir

1912 Braque's papier collé
Georges Braque's Fruit-Dish and Glass adds papier collé (a type of collage) to the conventions of cubism

1912 Delaunay develops Orphism
Guillaume Apollinaire coins the term Orphism for Robert Delaunay's distinctive style of abstraction

1913 Synthetic cubism
The cubist movement enters its second phase, deriving from the use of collage and known as Synthetic cubism

1913 Mona Lisa recovered
Leonardo's Mona Lisa is recovered two years after its theft when the thief, Vincenzo Perugia, tries to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

1916 Monet tackles water-lilies
Claude Monet begins the great cyclorama of water-lilies, Nympheas, that he donates to the French nation

1917 The term Surrealism is coined
The French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is the first to use the term Surrealism

1917 Police close Modigliani exhibition
Amedeo Modigliani's first Paris exhibition is immediately closed by the police because it contains paintings of nudes

1937 Guernica on show in Paris
Pablo Picasso's massive painting Guernica is exhibited in the Spanish pavilion at the World Fair in Paris

1951 Matisse's chapel at Vence
Henri Matisse completes the Chapel of the Rosary at Vence, with every detail designed by himself

1994 Oldest known paintings
Potholers discover the world's oldest known paintings in the Chauvet cave in southern France