The world’s fifth most visited museum, London’s National Gallery welcomes over six million people a year, who come from all over the world to see the 2300 works on display.

With so many pieces in the Trafalgar Square-facing museum, it can be easy to miss even iconic works. However, make sure no visit to the gallery is complete without seeing our top ten — and if you're unable to visit in person, view them in our slideshow.

Sandro Botticelli, “Venus and Mars,” circa 1485

Although less famous than “The Birth of Venus,” this work may be Botticelli’s finest, featuring the goddess of love. It is at once heavily allegorical, erotic, and even funny, with some academics seeing the stealing of the god of war’s lance as he dozes post-sex as a barely subtle metaphor for the state of his manhood.

Leonardo da Vinci, “The Virgin of the Rocks,” circa 1490s, 1507

A sister to the Louvre’s second most famous da Vinci, the National Gallery’s “Virgin on the Rocks” is a replacement for a San Francesco altarpiece which was sent to France. Unlike the Louvre version, da Vinci was probably aided in completing it by his studio; nonethless, it is still a stunning piece by one of the most famous artists of all time.

Diego Velásquez, “The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’),” 1647-51

A painting with a dual history. Not only is it the only surviving Velasquez female nude not destroyed in the days of the Spanish Inquisition, it also became the symbol of feminist protest when suffragette Mary Richardson slashed the work, hating “the way men gaped at it all day long.”

Jan van Eyck, “The Arnolfini Portrait,” 1434

“The Arnolfini Portrait” has become so well known (even featuring in the opening titles of American TV show “Desperate Housewives”) that its odd, radical details are often missed. These include the graffiti-like scrawl on the wall that says “Jan van Eyck was here,” as well as the two extra figures seen reflected in the mirror behind the merchant and his heavily-skirted wife.

Hans Holbein the Younger, “The Ambassadors,” 1533

Amongst Holbein’s regal portraits of Tudor-era monarchs and nobles, “The Ambassadors” stand out. This is thanks to the completely surreal addition of an elongated anamorphic skull in the lower half of the painting, causing much squatting within the National Gallery as visitors try to find the correct angle for the optical illusion to work.

Vincent van Gogh, “Sunflowers,” 1888

When this painting was sold in 1987, it was the most expensive painting ever sold, going for what was then just under $40 million. Seeing it in person, it is easy to see why: the iconic work is a distillation of the tragic talent for color and shape that Van Gogh had.

Georges Seurat, “Bathers at Asnières,” 1884

A huge piece that shows the development of Seurat’s Pointillism as it happened, with the painter adding dots of color into the image after he invented his new technique. This creates one of the most engaging Impressionist images, full of vibrant summer hues and unspoken narratives, like who the boy in the far right in shouting to.

Claude Monet, “The Water-Lily Pond,” 1899

A subject the artist returned to time and again, this water-lily pond painting was executed in the artist’s Giverny garden. Far less impressionistic than the later works he would execute as his eyesight began to fail, this work shows the progression of an idea as Monet finds new ways to show familiar scenes in a both metaphorical and actual new light.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, “Boy Bitten by a Lizard,” 1595-1600

One of the odder paintings by Caravaggio, “Boy Bitten by a Lizard” captures a moment of pain and emotion totally absent from the staid portraiture of his time. It also includes a vividly detailed still life to make it even more different from other works by his peers.

Rembrandt van Rijn, “Self Portrait at the Age of 63,” 1669

Although other self-portraits by the artist can be seen in London, including one at Kenwood House and another of a 34-year-old Rembrandt in the National Gallery, this is perhaps the best, with the artist portraying the ravages of age on his own face in unapologetic detail.