Definition of "old master" []

• A distinguished European artist of the period from about 1500 to the early 1700s, especially one of the great painters of this period. (noun)
• A work created by one of these artists. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Her first acquisition had been in 1764 when she bought a collection of old master paintings put together by the Berlin dealer Johann Gotzkowski."
• "I've traded practice blows with my old master Justin DuMorne, himself at one time a Warden."
• "Thence Linacre went to Oxford, where he pursued Greek under Cornelius Vitelli, an Italian visitor acting as prælector in New College. 9.52 In 1485-6 Linacre went with his old master to Italy -- his Sancta Mater Studiorum -- where Selling seems to have introduced him to Poliziano."