Sketches and Studies - II

Thomas Couture
Death of Seneca
ca. 1850
oil on canvas (sketch)
Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
Philoctetes on the Isle of Lemnos
1852
plaster (sketch)
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Wilhelm Marstrand
Gondola Scene in Venice
ca. 1854
oil on paper (sketch)
Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen

Wilhelm Marstrand
Landing from a Gondola in Venice
ca. 1854
oil on paper (sketch)
Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen

George Frederic Watts
Figure for The Denunciation of Cain
ca. 1872
plaster
(study for painting)
Watts Gallery, Guildford, Surrey

Kenyon Cox
Study of Plaster Torso
ca. 1880
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Paul Cézanne
Study of Statue - Praying Figure
ca. 1880-82
drawing, with watercolor
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,
Rotterdam

Edward Burne-Jones
Man and Mermaid
ca. 1885-86
watercolor
(study for painting, The Depths of the Sea)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Laurent-Honoré Marqueste
Sketch of Two Women
ca. 1890
terracotta
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Nikolaos Gyzis
Allegorical Figure of Science
ca. 1895
oil on paper
(study for painting)
National Museum, Athens

Morgan Russell
Sketch for Synchronie en bleu-violacé
ca. 1913
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Robert Caumont
Study of Madeleine Collasson in the Garden
ca. 1918-20
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Pierre-Albert Begaud
Study for Le Sud-Ouest
ca. 1930-40
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Oskar Schlemmer
Bauhaus Staircase
ca. 1931-32
watercolor on paper
(sketch for painting)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Peter Mitchell
Study for Wallpaper Motif
ca. 1948-52
wash drawing
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Charles Clough
Study after Courbet
1981
oil and enamel on paper
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Would I were there when they turn and Theban robbers face,
Amid the brazen roar of shields, Colonus in chase;
Whether by the Pythian strand, or further away to the west
Where immortal spirits reveal the life of the blessed
To the living man that has sworn to let none living know;

Or it may be north and west amid Oea's desolate snow.
No matter how steep the climb Colonus follows the track,
No matter how loose the rein Theseus rides at their back;
And the captives turn in the saddle, turn their heads at his call.
Swords upon brazen shield, and brazen helmets fall.

Creon is captured or slain, many are captured or slain.
Terrible the men of Colonus, terrible Theseus' men.
O glitter of bridle and bit; O lads in company
To the son of Rhea that rides upon the horses of the sea

Vowed, and to the Goddess Pallas Athena vowed!
O that I had seen it all mounted upon a cloud!

O that I had run thither, a bird upon the wind!
I have but imagined it all, seen it in the eye of the mind,
And cannot know what happened for all the words I say,
And therefore to God's daughter Pallas Athena pray
To bring the lads and the horses and the luckless ladies home,

And when that prayer is finished that a double blessing come
From the running ground of the deer, from the mountain land to this,
Pray to the brother and sister, Apollo and Artemis.

– Sophocles, chorus from Oedipus at Colonus (405 BC), translated by W.B. Yeats (1934)