Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Ornamental

Francesco di Giorgio Martini
Allegorical Figure of Fidelity
ca. 1484
detached fresco
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California


Geertgen tot Sint Jans
The Holy Kinship
ca. 1494
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Franciabigio (Francesco di Cristofano)
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1520
oil on panel
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Giorgio Ghisi after Giovanni Battista Bertani
Hercules and the Hydra
ca. 1557-58
engraving
British Museum

Jonas Silber
Landscape with Monkies beside a Lake
ca. 1572-90
engraving
(decorative metalwork design for drinking vessel)
British Museum

Marco Boschini
Allegorical Figures of Wealth and Speed
1660
engraving (book illustration)
British Museum

Stefano della Bella
Roman Eagle and Laurel Wreath
before 1664
drawing
British Museum

Sebastiano Galeotti
Satyr
ca. 1720
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Thomas Gainsborough
Wooded Landscape with a Wagon
ca. 1760-65
watercolor on paper
British Museum

Benigno Bossi after Ennemond-Alexandre Petitot
Mascarade à la Grecque
(self portrait of Petitot in Classical costume)
1771
etching
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Two Women
1787
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Otto Försterling
From On High
1867
etching and drypoint
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Manierre Dawson
Coordinate Escape
1910
oil on board
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Robert Delaunay
Formes Circulaires
1930
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Ilya Bolotowsky
Abstraction
ca. 1940
oil on board
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Amy Sillman
Untitled April Drawing 4, Version 3
2014
pastel and charcoal on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

    The Stygian council thus dissolved; and forth
In order came the grand infernal peers:
Midst came their mighty paramount, and seemed
Alone the antagonist of heaven, nor less
Than hell's dread emperor with pomp supreme
And God-like imitated state; him round
A globe of fiery seraphim enclosed
With bright emblazonry and horrent arms.
Then of their session ended they bid cry
With trumpets' regal sound the great result:
Toward the four winds four speedy cherubim
Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy
By herald's voice explained: the hollow abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the host of hell
With deafening shout returned them loud acclaim. 
Thence more at ease their minds and somewhat raised
By false presumptuous hope, the rangèd powers
Disband, and wandering, each his several way
Pursues, as inclination or sad choice
Leads him perplexed, where he may likeliest find 
Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain
The irksome hours, till his great chief return.

– John Milton, from Paradise Lost (1667)