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| Anonymous German Artist Beaker with Meleager and Atalanta 17th century ivory Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
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| Simon Troger Abduction of Proserpine ca. 1750-60 ivory and wood Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich |
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| Ignaz Elhafen Abduction of the Sabine Women 1705 ivory relief Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich |
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| Balthasar Griessmann Hercules and the Nemean Lion ca. 1670-75 ivory Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Christoph Maucher Hercules and Antaeus ca. 1680-90 ivory Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
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| David Heschler Hercules and Antaeus before 1667 ivory relief Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| David Heschler Hercules, Dejanira and Nessus before 1667 ivory relief Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Anonymous Japanese Artist Wolf with Severed Head ca. 1825-75 ivory netsuke Asian Art Museum, San Francisco |
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| Anonymous Japanese Artist Severed Head resting on Dagger 19th century ivory netsuke Asian Art Museum, San Francisco |
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| Anonymous German Artist Allegory of Youth and Death 17th century ivory Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
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| Anonymous Spanish Artist Corpus 17th century ivory Harvard Art Museums |
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| Justus Glesker St Mary Magdalen ca. 1650 ivory Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Justus Glesker St Mary Magdalen ca. 1650 ivory Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Balthasar Griessmann Fall of Man ca. 1670-80 ivory Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
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| Balthasar Griessmann Sacrifice of Isaac 1679 ivory relief Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| David Heschler Death stealing a Child before 1667 ivory Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
from 1929
It is time for the destruction of error.
The chairs are being brought in from the garden,
The chairs are being brought in from the garden,
The summer talk stopped on that savage coast
Before the storms, after the guests and birds:
In sanatoriums they laugh less and less,
Less certain of cure; and the loud madman
Sinks now into a more terrible calm.
The falling leaves know it, the children,
At play on the fuming alkali-tip
Or by the flooded football ground, know it –
This is the dragon's day, the devourer's:
Orders are given to the enemy for a time
With underground proliferation of mould,
With constant whisper and with casual question,
To haunt the poisoned in his shunned house,
To destroy the efflorescence of the flesh,
The intricate play of the mind, enforce
Conformity with the orthodox bone.
You whom I gladly walk with, touch,
Or wait for as one certain of good,
We know it, know that love
Needs more than the admiring excitement of union,
More than the abrupt self-confident farewell,
The heel on the finishing blade of grass,
The self-confidence of the falling root,
Needs death, death of the grain, our death,
Death of the old gang; would leave them
In sullen valley where is made no friend,
The old gang to be forgotten in the spring,
The hard bitch and the riding-master,
Stiff underground, deep in clear lake
The lolling bridegroom, beautiful, there.
– W.H. Auden (1929)