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| Anton Graff Portrait of the Daughters of Johann Julius von Vieth und Golssenau ca. 1773 oil on canvas Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe |
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| Anonymous German Artist Portrait of Princesses Sophie Amalie, Christine Louise and Augusta Dorothea of Brunswick-Lüneburg ca. 1700 oil on canvas Kunsthalle zu Kiel |
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| Jean Broc The Favorable Fortune 1819 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Béziers |
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| Jean-Siméon Fournier Two Friends 1788 oil on canvas Musée des Augustins de Toulouse |
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| Hippolyte Flandrin Portrait of brothers René-Charles and Jean-Baptiste Claude Amédé Dassy 1850 lithograph Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon |
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| Henri Matisse Two Sisters 1917 oil on canvas Denver Art Museum |
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| Johann Baptist Lampi the Elder Portrait of Countesses Zoë and Adelaide Tomatis 1788-89 oil on canvas (unfinished) Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
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| Karl Julius Milde Self Portrait between Julius Oldach and Erwin Speckter 1826 oil on panel Museum Behnhaus, Lübeck |
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| Henri-François Riesener Portrait of Mother and Daughter ca. 1816-23 oil on canvas Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki |
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| Ary Scheffer Study for a Portrait of Two Sisters ca. 1820 oil on canvas Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands |
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| Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Student with Friend 1926 oil on canvas Museum Ludwig, Cologne |
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| Boris Ignatovich Russian Youth 1937 gelatin silver print Museum Ludwig, Cologne |
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| Louis Icart Intimacy (The Green Screen) 1928 etching, drypoint and aquatint High Museum of Art, Atlanta |
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| Eduard von Gebhardt Study of Seated Woman reading to Elderly Man ca. 1870 oil on panel Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel |
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| Harriet Backer Big Brother Playing 1890 oil on canvas Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Grave Naiskos of Dexandrides and Kallistratos 360 BC marble relief (excavated in Attica) Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden |
Chorus of Persian Elders: Be well assured, Queen of this land, that you do not have to tell us twice to do any service in word or deed, so far as our ability permits; we on whom you call for advice are your loyal friends.
Queen: Dreams of the night have been my frequent companions ever since my son led out his army and departed in order to lay waste the land of the Ionians;* but never yet have I had one that was so plain as during the night just past. I will tell you about it. There seemed to come into my sight two finely dressed women, one arrayed in Persian, the other in Doric robes,** outstandingly superior in stature to the women of real life, of flawless beauty, and sisters of the same stock: one, by the fall of the lot, was a native and inhabitant of the land of Greece, the other of the Orient. I seemed to see these two raising some kind of strife between themselves; my son, perceiving this, tried to restrain and calm them, yoked them under his chariot, and passed the yoke strap under their necks. One of them, thus arrayed towered up proudly, and kept her jaw submissively in harness; but the other began to struggle, tore the harness from the chariot with her hands, and smashed the yoke in half. My son fell out. His father Darius appeared, standing beside him and showing pity; but when Xerxes saw him, he tore the robes that clothed his body. That, I say, is what I saw in the night. I approached the altar with offerings in my hand, wishing to pour a rich libation to the deities who avert evil, for whom such rites are appropriate. Then I saw an eagle fleeing for refuge to the altar of Phoebus – and I was rooted speechless to the spot with terror, my friends. Next I saw a hawk swooping on him at full speed with beating wings, and tearing at his head with its talons – and he simply cowered and submitted. This was terrifying for me to behold, and must be terrifying for you to hear; for you know well that if my son were successful he would be a very much admired man, but were he to fail – well, he is not accountable to the community, and if he comes home safe he remains ruler of this land.
– Aeschylus, from Persians (472 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)
*The Persians and many other peoples of western Asia applied the name "Ionian" to all Greeks, doubtless because the first Greeks with whom they came into contact, those of Asia Minor, mostly belonged to the Ionian branch of the Greek people.
**Aeschylus chose to dress the woman representing Greece in "Doric" rather than "Ionic" style, not because he is imagining her as a Dorian Greek (e.g. a Spartan) – both styles were in use in the Athens of his day – but because the Doric chiton (typically woolen, and pinned at the shoulders) symbolized Greek simplicity, in contrast to Persian luxury, more effectively than the Ionic (draped, and often of fine linen).