Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Early Painted Portraits of Certain Europeans

Hugo van der Goes
Portrait of a man at prayer
with St John the Baptist

ca. 1475
oil on panel
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Antonello da Messina
Portrait of a young man
1478
oil on panel
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

BRIGHTNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR 

A brittle jewell beauty is on mortall men employde,
Thou gift that for a season short of mankinde arte enjoyde,
How soone alas with feathered foot hence dost thou fading slide?
The partching sommers vapour hoate in Vers most pleasant pride
So withers not the meadowes greene, (when as the scorching sunne)
In Tropick ligne of burning crab full hoate at noone doth runne
And on her shorter clowdy wheeles unhorseth soone the night.
With wanny leaves downe hand the heads of withred lilies whight,
The balmy bloomes and sprouting floure do leave the naked head,
As beauty bright whose radiant beames in corauld cheekes is spred,
Is dashed in the twincke of eye: no day as yet did passe,
In which not of his beauty reft some pearles person was.
For favour is a fleetying thing: what wight of any wit
Will unto frail and fickle joy his confidence commit?
Take pleasure of it while thou mayst, for Tyme with stealing steps
Wil undermint, an howre past strayght in a worser leps:
Why flyest thou to the wilderness, to seeke thy succour there?
Thy beauty bydes not safer in the waylesse woodes than here.

 from Seneca's play Hippolytus, translated by John Studley (ca. 1545-1590)

Albrecht Dürer
Portrait of Albrecht Dürer the Elder, the artist's father
1490
oil on panel
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Hans Memling
Old woman at prayer
with St Anne

1470
tempera on panel
Morgan Library, New York

Hans Memling
Young man at prayer
with St William of Maleval

1470
tempera on panel
Morgan Library, New York

Hans Memling
Portrait of an old woman
ca. 1468-70
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Hans Memling
Portrait of a man reading
ca. 1480
oil on panel
Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania

Hans Memling
Portrait of a woman at prayer
ca. 1480
oil on panel
Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania

Hans Memling
Portrait of a man
1490
oil on canvas
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Anonymous German painter
Portrait of a nobleman
ca. 1500-1550
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Piero di Cosimo
Portrait of a young man
ca. 1500
oil on panel
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Anonymous painter working in Lombardy
Ceiling panel with bust-portrait
ca. 1500
oil on panel
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Anonymous painter working in Lombardy
Ceiling panel with bust-portrait
ca. 1500
oil on panel
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Anonymous painter working in Lombardy
Ceiling panel with bust-portrait
ca. 1500
oil on panel
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Anonymous painter working in Lombardy
Ceiling panel with bust-portrait
ca. 1500
oil on panel
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Hope for no immortalitie, for wealth will weare away,
As we may learne by every yere, yea howres of every day.
For Zepharus doth mollifye the colde and blustering windes:
The somers drought doth take away the spryng out of our minds.
And yet the somer cannot last, but once must step asyde,
The Autumn thinkes to kepe his place, but Autumn cannot bide.
For when he hath brought furth his fruits and stuft the barns with corn,
The winter eates and empties all, and thus is Autumn worne.
Then hory frostes possesse the place, the tempestes work much harm,
The rage of stormes done make al colde which somer had made so warm.
Wherfore let no man put his trust in that, that will decay,
For slipper welth will not continue, pleasure will weare away.
For when that we have lost our lyfe, and lye under a stone,
What are we then, we are but earth, then is our pleasure gon.

 from an Ode of Horace, translated anonymously as All Worldly Pleasures Fade and first published in 1557