Allegorical Contrivances - III

Félix Auvray
Allegorical Scene
(Child with the Three Fates)
ca. 1820-30
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Carlo Caliari
Allegorical Figures
ca. 1590-95
oil on canvas
National Gallery, Athens

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (il Grechetto)
Study for Allegorical Composition
ca. 1652
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Hans Daucher
Allegory of Dürer's Virtues
(armored artist in combat before his patron, Emperor Maximilian I)
1522
Solnhofen limestone relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

Abraham Hondius
Cosmic Allegory
ca. 1660-65
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum, Basel

Anonymous Italian Artist
Holy Trinity in the Tree of Eden
flanked by Allegorical Figures
ca. 1650
drawing
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

Laurent de La Hyre
Allegory of the Regency of Anne of Austria
1648
oil on canvas
Château de Versailles

Anonymous German Artist
Allegorical Figure of Discretion
1702-1704
sandstone relief
(architectural ornament)
Bode Museum, Berlin

Andreas Schlüter
Allegorical Figure of Fortitude
ca. 1704
sandstone relief
(lunette)
Bode Museum, Berlin

Michiel Sweerts
Allegory of the Sense of Hearing
ca. 1655-60
oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

Adolph Menzel
Study for Hammonia
(Personification of Hamburg)
1887
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Charles Mellin-
Allegorical Figure
ca. 1630
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Balthasar Permoser
Flora as Allegory of Spring
1695
ivory
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci)
Allegorical Figure
ca. 1535-36
drawing
(study for fresco)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Antonio Vassilacchi (Antonio Aliense)
Allegorical Scene
ca. 1585
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Jacopo Tintoretto
Allegorical Portrait of Ottavio Strada
1567
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Duke of Guise [soliloquy]:

Now Guise, begins those deepe ingendred thoughts

To burst abroad, those never dying flames,
Which cannot be extinguisht but by bloud.

Oft have I leveld, and at last have learnd,

That perill is the cheefest way to happines,
And resolution honors fairest aime.
What glory is there in a common good,
That hanges for every peasant to atchive?
That like I best that flyes beyond my reach.

Set me to scale the high Peramides,

And thereon set the Diadem of Fraunce,
Ile either rend it with my nayles to naught,
Or mount the top with my aspiring winges,
Although my downfall be the deepest hell.
For this, I wake, when others think I sleepe,
For this, I waite, that scornes attendance else:

For this, my quenchles thirst whereon I builde,
Hath often pleaded kindred to the King,

For this, this head, this heart, this hand and sworde,

Contrives, imagines and fully executes
Matters of importe, aimed at by many,
Yet understoode by none.

For this, hath heaven engendred me of earth,
For this, this earth sustaines my bodies waight,
And with this wait I'le counterpoise a Crowne,

Or with seditions weary all the worlde . . .

– Christopher Marlowe, The Massacre at Paris, scene ii (1593)