Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Zetetic

Johannes Zainer
Seneca's wife Pompeia Paulina saved from joining in his Suicide
1473
hand-colored woodcut
(illustration to De Mulieribus Claris of Boccaccio)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Robert Zandvliet
Untitled
2005
tempera on canvas
Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands

Francisco de Zurbarán
The Annunciation
ca. 1638-39
oil on panel (altarpiece)
Musée de Grenoble

Adrian Zingg
Landscape with Rock Arch
ca. 1795-1805
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Taddeo Zuccaro
Study for Figure of a Prophet
before 1566
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Lorenzo Zucchi after Pietro Rotari
Young Woman with a Book
before 1779
etching and engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anders Zorn
Portrait of Grover Cleveland
(American politician)
1899
etching
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Franz von Zülow
Dreamscape
1942
oil paint and watercolor on paper
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Bernardo Zenale
St Anthony of Padua
ca. 1502-1507
tempera on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Januarius Zick
Moses raising the Brazen Serpent
ca. 1750-60
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Marco Zoppo
Putti tending Monumental Column
ca. 1455-60
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Domenico Zenoi
Portrait of Edward VI, King of England
ca. 1560-80
engraving
Kupferstichkabinett.
Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg

Anton Maria Zanetti after Jacopo de' Barbari
St Catherine of Alexandria
ca. 1720
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Heinrich Zille
Model in Studio
ca. 1899-1901
gelatin silver print
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Johann Baptist Zimmermann
Founding of Wessobrunn Monastery
1755
oil on canvas
(study for fresco)
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Kristian Zahrtmann
Ambrogio
(artist's model in Rome)
1883
oil on panel
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

For Demeter of Thermopylae, to whom Acrisius of Argos built this temple, and for her daughter under earth, did Timodemus of Naucratis place here these gifts, a tithe of his gains; for so he had vowed.

Often in truth, in the choruses of the tribe Acamantis, did the Hours, the companions of Dionysus, shout in triumph at the ivy-crowned dithyrambs, and overshadow the bright locks of skilled poets with fillets and rose blossoms.  The chorus now hath set up this tripod as a witness of their Bacchic contest.  Antigenes was the poet who trained those men to sing his verses, and Ariston of Argos, clearly pouring dulcet breath into the Doric pipe, nursed well the sweet voice of the singers.  The leader of their honey-voiced circle was Hipponicus, son of Struthon, riding in the chariot of the Graces, who established for him among men a name renowned, and the fame of glorious victory, for the sake of the violet-crowned Muses. 

I will tell of her; for it is not meet that she should lie here without a name, the noble wife of Archnautes, Xanthippe, granddaughter of Periander, him who once ruled over the people, holding the lordship of high-towered Corinth.

This is the tomb of Mnasalcas of Plataea, the writer of elegies.  His Muse was a fragment torn from Simonides' page, loud-voiced but empty, a bombastic spout of dithyrambs.  He is dead; let us not cast stones at him; but if he were alive, he would be blowing as loud as a drum beats. 

Phocis perished in a strange land; for the black ship did not escape the waves, but went down into the great deep of the Aegean main when the south-west wind had stirred the sea up from its depths.  But in the land of his fathers he got an empty tomb; and by it his mother, Promethis, like in her suffering to the mournful bird halcyon, bewails evermore her son, calling "aiai," telling how he perished before his time.  

O King, Far-shooter, curb the force of thy bow with which thou didst lay low the Giant's might.  Open not thy wolf-slaying quiver, but aim at these young men the arrow of Love, that strong in the friendship of their youthful peers, they may defend their country; for it sets courage afire, and He is ever of all gods the strongest to exalt the hearts of the foremost in the fight.  But do thou, whom the Schoenians reverence as their ancestral god, accept the gifts Melistion proffers.

– from Book XIII (Epigrams in Various Metres) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1918)