Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Preserved Faces I

Jacob Ferdinand Voet (Flanders)
Portrait of Maria Virginia Borghese-Chigi
ca. 1675
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands)
Self-portrait
1887
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"How did Achilles take on for Patroclus' departure!  A black cloud of sorrows overshadowed him, saith Homer.  Jacob rent his clothes, put sackcloth about his loins, sorrowed for his son a long season, and could not be comforted, but would needs go down  into the grave unto his son.  Many years after, the remembrance of such friends, of such accidents, is most grievous unto us, to see or hear of it, though it concerns not ourselves but others.  Scaliger saith of himself that he never read Socrates' death in Plato's Phaedo but he wept;  Austin shed tears when he read the destruction of Troy.  But howsoever this passion of sorrow be violent, bitter, and seizeth familiarly on wise, valiant, discreet men, yet it may surely be withstood, it may be diverted.  For what is there in this life, that it should be so dear unto us? or that we should so much deplore the departure of a friend?  The greatest pleasures are common society, to enjoy one another's presence, feasting, hawking, hunting, brooks, woods, hills, music, dancing, etc.;  all this is but vanity and loss of time, as I have sufficiently declared."

 from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton, first published in 1621

Pietro Torrigiano (Florence)
Portrait-bust of King Henry VII
ca. 1509-1511
painted terracotta
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Robert Thoburn (Scotland)
Miniature-portrait
 Marquess of Waterford

1840
watercolor on ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory
Relief-bust of Marie-Antoinette
ca. 1850
porcelain
British Museum

Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory
Relief-bust of Louis XVI
ca. 1850
porcelain
British Museum

Roman Empire
Relief-bust of a young man
AD 130-140
bronze
British Museum

Roman Empire
Head of Demeter
AD 30-180
marble
British Museum

Roman Empire
Head of Apollo
1st-2nd century AD
marble
British Museum

Dirk Jacobsz (Netherlands)
Portrait of Pompeius Occo
ca. 1531
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Pier Francesco Foschi (Florence)
Portrait of a lady
ca. 1540-65
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Venice)
Actress in the role of Diana
ca. 1730-50
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Alexander Cooper (England)
Miniature-portrait
possibly of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor

ca. 1628-30
watercolor on vellum
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Henry Shaw (England)
copy after the Rainbow Portrait of Elizabeth I
by Isaac Oliver at Hatfield House

ca. 1820-1870
hand-colored aquatint
Royal Collection, Great Britain