Monday, September 30, 2019

Paganism in Relief (Vienna)

Ignaz Elhafen
Diana and her Nymphs
ca. 1695
ivory relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ignaz Bendl
Apollo and Diana slaying the Children of Niobe
1684
ivory relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Christoph Maucher
Hercules battling the Hydra
(fragments from the throne of Emperor Leopold I)
1677
amber relief-plaques
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Daniel Neuberger
Neptune
ca. 1666
wax relief on agate
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Sonnet VII

Whither is gone the wisdom and the power
That ancient sages scattered with the notes
Of thought-suggesting lyres? The music floats
In the void air; e'en at this breathing hour,
In every cell and every blooming bower
The sweetness of old lays is hovering still:
But the strong soul, the self-constraining will,
The rugged root that bare the winsome flower
Is weak and withered. Were we like the Fays
That sweetly nestle in the fox-glove bells,
Or lurk and murmur in the rose-lipped shells
Which Neptune to the earth for quit-rent pays,
Then might our pretty modern Philomels
Sustain our spirits with their roundelays.

– Hartley Coleridge (1833)

Gérard van Opstal
Putti playing with a Goat
ca. 1650-65
ivory relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Georg Schweigger
Sleeping Diana
1650
limestone relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ottavio Miseroni
Ceres
ca. 1602-1605
cameo in commesso relief
(agate, jasper, chalcedony, with enameled-gold mount)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Hendrik Goltzius
Bacchus, Venus, Ceres and Cupid
1595
silver printing plate
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Antonio Abondio
Toilette of Venus
ca. 1587
bronze plaquette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giovanni Maria Mosca
Artemis, Protectress of Wild Animals
ca. 1525
bronze plaquette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Hans Daucher
Judgment of Paris
1522
limestone relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Galeazzo Mondella (called Moderno)
Hercules and the Nemean Lion
ca. 1488-89
bronze plaquette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Roman Empire
Abduction of Persephone
3rd century AD
marble sarcophagus
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Roman Empire
Apollo at the Omphalos
2nd century AD
marble relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna