Dark Grounds - I

Hellenistic Culture in Asia Minor
Winged Deity
200-180 BC
terracotta
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden

Francesco da Sangallo
St John the Baptist
ca. 1525-50
marble
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Ancient Roman Culture
Muse
20 BC - AD 10
marble
(heavily restored, with modern head)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Max Klinger
Crouching Figure
1900-1901
marble
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Leonhard Kern
St Jerome
ca. 1625
ivory
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anton Grassi
Bacchic Scene
1781
porcelain
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

workshop of Raimund Faltz
Hercules
before 1694
ivory
Bode Museum, Berlin

Herm of Alexander the Great
(the so-called Azara Herm)
plaster cast, ca. 1880, of
marble original, ca. 3rd-1st century BC
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Ancient Greek Culture
Hera
280-270 BC
marble
(excavated on Samos)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Emil Wolff
Meleager
ca. 1841
marble
(incorporating Roman torso, 1st century AD)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Giovanni Tedesco
Fragment of Crucifix
ca. 1460
carved and painted lindenwood
Bode Museum, Berlin

Jean-Guillaume Moitte
Égalité
1793
engraving
Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Photographer
Marble Statue, The Greek Slave, by Hiram Powers
ca. 1850
daguerreotypes (stereograph)
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Lucas Cranach the Elder
Venus
ca. 1530
oil on panel
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jean-Jacques Henner
Woman on a Black Divan
1869
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mulhouse

Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre
Prometheus
1737
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Epigrams in the Hippodrome at Constantinople

On the Statue of the Charioteer Constantinus

Thou didst not stand in bronze while still alive, Constantinus, for envy prevailed against fame.  But now on thy death the whole city honours thee as it can; but what is worthy of thy horsemanship?

On the Statue of the Charioteer Porphyrius

Here they set up again in brass and silver Porphyrius, who formerly, too, stood here in brass owing to his merit, when he had ceased from his labours and unbuckled his belt.  Old man, after receiving honours from abroad, thou didst at the loud request of the people take up thy whip again and dost rage furiously on the course, as if in a second youth. 

On the Statue of the Charioteer Julianus

The Emperor himself, the whole People, and the reverend Senate, by a common vote erected this statue of Julianus, whose mother and nurse was Tyre, a charioteer who had won many crowns.  For in his old age he had retired from the course, leaving regret even to all in whom love of his rivals was strong. 

On the Statue of the Charioteer Uranius

To thee alone, both during thy racing days and after thou hadst ceased to contend, did Victory give this reward thrice, Uranius, from each faction.  For formerly among the Blues thou didst wear the crown for twenty illustrious years.  But then thou didst cease from horsemanship, and the faction of the Greens sought thee.  To them thou didst give victory, and they to thee this reward.  

Another on the Statue of the Charioteer Uranius

Thou shouldst have borne arms and not these robes, as being a driver and also a champion in war.  For when the tyrant-slaying sword of the emperor went forth thou didst take up arms, too, and join in the battle of the ships, and master of many counsels, thou didst skilfully seize on a double victory, that of the charioteer and that of the tyrannicide.

On the Calydonian Boar

It is of bronze, but see what strength he contrived to show, the sculptor of the boar, moulding a living beast with the bristles standing up on its neck, with sharpened tusks, grunting and darting terrible light from its eyes, all its lips wet with foam.  No longer do we marvel that it destroyed a chosen host of demi-gods. 

– from Book XV (Miscellanea) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1918)