Friday, December 19, 2025

Interlocutory

Sebastiano del Piombo
Cardinal Bandinello Sauli, his Secretary and two Geographers
1516
oil on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC


Enea Salmeggia (il Talpino)
Angel appearing to Two Saints in a Temple
ca. 1605
drawing
(study for painting formerly in Milan,
but destroyed in World War II)
British Museum

Matthias Stom
Christ and the Woman of Samaria
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Kunsthaus Zürich

Francesco Solimena
Juno, Iris and Io with Argus
ca. 1704-1708
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Louis de Silvestre
Alexander the Great and Diogenes
ca. 1750
oil on canvas
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

Jakob Matthias Schmutzer
Diogenes and Alexander the Great
ca. 1785
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Nicolas-Antoine Taunay
Bivouac of Sans-Culottes
1790
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Art d'Orléans

Samuel Shelley
Oedipus and Antigone
ca. 1800
drawing
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas

Thomas Stothard
Allegory of the Peace of Amiens
1802
drawing (design for transparency)
British Museum

David Scott
Abraham and Isaac
ca. 1840
oil on canvas
Princeton University Art Museum

Carl Schindler
Tavern Scene
1841
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Moritz von Schwind
The Visit
ca. 1860
oil on canvas
Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Charles Haslewood Shannon
Hero and Leander
ca. 1894
drawing (study for woodcut book illustration)
British Museum

Byam Shaw
Design for Frontispiece to The Monastery by Sir Walter Scott
ca. 1898
watercolor and gouache on board
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Joakim Skovgaard
Adam and Eve tempted by Satan
1903
etching
British Museum

Theo Scharf
Restaurant II
ca. 1923
etching
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Jon Serl
Liz
ca. 1950
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

from A Letter to a Friend upon the Occasion of the Death of his Intimate Friend

    That Charles the Fifth was Crowned upon the day of his Nativity, it being in his own power so to order it, makes no singular Animadversion; but that he should also take King Francis Prisoner upon that day, was an unexpected Coincidence, which made the same remarkable. Antipater who had an Anniversary Feaver every Year upon his Birth-day, needed no Astrological Revolution to know what day he should dye on. When the fixed Stars have made a Revolution unto the points from whence they first set out, some of the Ancients thought the World would have an end; which was a kind of dying upon the day of its Nativity. Now the disease prevailing and swiftly advancing about the time of his Nativity, some were of Opinion, that he would leave the World on the day he entred into it: but this being a lingring Disease, and creeping softly on, nothing critical was found or expected, and he died not before fifteen days after. Nothing is more common with Infants than to dye on the day of their Nativity, to behold the worldly Hours and but the Fractions thereof; and even to perish before their Nativity in the hidden World of the Womb, and before their good Angel is conceived to undertake them. But in Persons who outlive many Years, and when there are no less than three hundred sixty five days to determine their Lives in every Year; that the first day should make the last, that the Tail of the Snake should return into its Mouth precisely at that time, and they should wind up upon the day of their Nativity, is indeed a remarkable Coincidence, which tho Astrology hath taken witty pains to salve, yet hath it been very wary in making Predictions of it. 

– Sir Thomas Browne (1656)