Nymphs

Ancient Greek Culture
Nymphs
350-300 BC
marble votive relief
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

attributed to Benedetto Bordone
Poliphilo and the Nymphs of the Five Senses
1499
woodcut with letterpress
(text by Francesco Colonna from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
published in Venice by Aldus Manutius)
 Hamburger Kunsthalle

Eustache Le Sueur
Poliphilus with bathing Nymphs
(scene from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna)
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
Musée Magnin, Dijon

Palma il Vecchio
Two Resting Nymphs
ca. 1510-15
oil on panel
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Hendrik van Balen and Jan Brueghel the Elder
Diana and her Nymphs after the Hunt
ca. 1620
oil on copper
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Giambologna
Sleeping Nymph
ca. 1600
bronze statuette
Bode Museum, Berlin

Camillo Gavasetti
Diana and Nymphs bathing
ca. 1625-28
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Gerrit van Honthorst
Diana and her Nymphs
1650
oil on canvas
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

François Perrier
Nymph with a Shell
(antique statue, now in the Louvre)
1638
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Peter Paul Rubens and workshop of Jan Brueghel the Elder
Nymphs filling a Cornucopia
1615
oil on panel
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Giuseppe Maria Crespi
Cupids disarming Sleeping Nymphs
ca. 1690-1705
oil on copper
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Gaetano Gandolfi
Nymph
ca. 1785
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Anonymous Italian Artist
Torso of Nymph
18th century
marble
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Adriaen van der Werff
Nymph dancing to Shepherd's Flute
1718
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Louis-Léopold Boilly
Reclining Nymph
ca. 1825
drawing
(colored chalks on blue paper)
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Émile Bernard
The Nymphs
1890
hand-colored woodcut
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Now evermore least some one hope might ease
The Commons jangling minds, apparant signes arose, 
Strange sights appear'd, the angry threatning gods

Fill'd both the earth and seas with prodegies;
Great store of strange and unknown stars were seene

Wandering about the North, and rings of fire
Flie in the ayre, and dreadfull bearded stars,
And Commets that presage the fal of kingdoms.

The flattering skie gliter'd in often flames,

And sundry fiery meteors blaz'd in heaven;

Now spearlike, long; now like a spreading torch:

Lightning in silence, stole forth without clouds,
And from the northren climat snatching fier
Blasted the Capitoll: The lesser stars

Which wont to run their course through empty night
At noone day mustered; Phœbe having fild

Her meeting hornes to match her brothers light,
Strooke with th'earths suddaine shadow waxed pale,

Titan himselfe throand in the midst of heaven,
His burning chariot plung'd in sable cloudes,
And whelm'd the world in darknesse . . .

– from the First Book of Lucan, translated by Christopher Marlowe (published 1600)