El Greco Portrait of a Young Nobleman ca. 1600-1605 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
Anonymous Artist after Isaac Oliver Portrait of Henry, Prince of Wales ca. 1612 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
Sisto Badalocchio Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well ca. 1609-1610 oil on canvas Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
Frans Hals Merrymakers at Shrovetide ca. 1616-17 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Hendrick ter Brugghen Martyrdom of St Catherine of Alexandria ca. 1618-20 oil on panel Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
attributed to Salomon Mesdach Portrait of Jacob Pergens 1619 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Hendrick ter Brugghen Lute Player 1624 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
Thomas de Keyser Portrait of a Gentleman 1627 oil on copper National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Anthony van Dyck Portrait of Henrietta Maria, Queen of England ca. 1635 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie, Dresden |
attributed to Michel Dorigny Virgin holding an Oak Branch ca. 1640 oil on canvas Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
Frans Hals Portrait of a Man ca. 1646-48 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Govert Flinck Portrait of a Man 1648 oil on canvas Milwaukee Art Museum |
Govert Flinck Portrait of a Woman 1648 oil on canvas Milwaukee Art Museum |
Anonymous Spanish Artist Portrait of a Young Man ca. 1650 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Gerard Soest Portrait of Lady Borlase ca. 1672-75 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Nicolas de Largillière The Artist in his Studio ca. 1686 oil on canvas Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
"Clement was forced to pay an enormous war indemnity and it was necessary to melt precious pieces from the treasury. According to Cellini, "The pope and one of his servants, Cavalierino, brought me jeweled tiaras from the Apostolic Chamber. The pope commanded me to remove the jewels from their mountings, which I did. Each stone was wrapped in a piece of paper and sewn into the lining of the pope's clothing and Cavalierino's. The remaining gold, about 200 pounds, was left me with the order to melt it down." This was how the pope managed to pay the fantastic sum of 70,000 gold ducats required by the treaty of surrender of June 5. It was necessary to coin still more pieces of gold and silver to pay the colossal tribute required to get the troops to leave. The summer of 1527 saw the most unbelievable conditions – the city totally stripped, virtually without food, the inhabitants held by force and used as servants, the threat of plague hanging over them because the fountains had been destroyed – while the pope and high dignitaries desperately tried to borrow still more money in Naples or elsewhere, or to coin more. . . . The sack of Rome virtually wiped out the Church's treasure of gold and silver, which is why we know so little about the craft in central Italy."
– André Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 1527, translated by Beth Archer, 1983 (expanded from the A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1977, and published by Princeton University Press and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)