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| Charles Murray Self Portrait (The Artist in his Studio) before 1954 oil on panel Bradford Museums and Galleries, Yorkshire |
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| Kurt Schwitters Portrait of Fred Uhlman 1940 oil on canvas Hatton Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne |
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| Ethel Gabain Reading ca. 1935 oil on canvas Wolverhampton Art Gallery, West Midlands |
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| Harold Knight Girl Reading 1932 oil on canvas Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Lancashire |
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| James Durden Betty ca. 1925 oil on canvas Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, Cumbria |
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| Charles Sims Sybil, Countess of Rocksavage, later Marchioness of Cholmondeley ca. 1923 oil on canvas Bury Art Museum, Manchester |
Penshurst Place
The bright drops quivering on a thorn
in the rich silence after rain,
lute music in the orchard aisles,
the paths ablaze with daffodils,
intrigue and venery in the air
à l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs,
the iron hand and the velvet glove –
come live with me and be my love.
A pearl face, numinously bright,
shining in silence of the night,
a muffled crash of smouldering logs,
bad dreams of courtiers and of dogs,
the Spanish ships around Kinsale,
the screech-owl and the nightingale,
the falcon and the turtle dove –
come live with me and be my love.
– Derek Mahon (1977)
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| Ernest Board Dioscorides describing the Mandrake 1909 oil on canvas Wellcome Collection, London |
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| Thérèse Schwartze Going to Church - A Dutch Peasant 1883 oil on canvas Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth |
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| Carl Seiler Literary Researches, An Eighteenth-Century Costume Piece 1881 oil on panel Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| George Hayter Coronation Portrait of Queen Victoria 1838 oil on canvas Naughton Gallery, Queen's University, Belfast |
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| Peter de Wint Mrs Peter de Wint ca. 1815 oil on canvas Usher Gallery, Lincoln |
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| Giuseppe Filippo Liberati Marchi Marie de St Pol (1304–1377) Countess of Pembroke ca. 1780 oil on canvas Pembroke College, University of Cambridge |
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| Thomas Wyck Alchemist in his Laboratory with an Assistant ca. 1673 oil on canvas National Trust, Ham House, London |
They Spoke to Me
They said to me no, don't take any, no, don't touch, that is burning
hot. No, don't try to touch, to hold, that weighs too much, that
hurts.
They said to me: Read, write. And I tried, I took up a word, but it
struggled, it clucked like a frightened hen, wounded, in a cage of
black straw, spotted with old traces of blood.
– Yves Bonnefoy, translated by Mary Ann Caws (2014)
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| Gabriël Metsu Old Woman Asleep ca. 1657-62 oil on canvas Wallace Collection, London |
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| Johan Moreelse The Young Poet before 1634 oil on panel Southampton City Art Gallery |