Ovoid

Hollerbaum & Schmidt (printers)
Garbáty Cigaretten - Gold Saba
ca. 1911
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Francesco Marcolini (printer)
Pressmark of Francesco Marcolini of Venice
ca. 1545
woodcut and letterpress
(Veritas)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Dietrich Krüger after Gabriel Weyer
Autumn
1613
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Johann Friedrich Bolt
Mercury
1791
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Johann Rudolf Schellenburg
Apollo Belvedere
1775
etching (book illustration)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Valentin Lefebvre after Palma il Giovane
Triumph of Venice
before 1682
drawing (print study)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Laurent-Charles Maréchal
Shepherd
ca. 1850
oil on canvas
Musée de la Cour d'Or de Metz

Ambroise Crozat
Baptism of Christ
1722
oil on canvas
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Wolfgang Kilian the Elder
Pressmark of Wolfgang Kilian of Augsburg
ca. 1619-21
engraving
(printing shop)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Sigmund Feyerabend (printer)
Pressmark of Sigmund Feyerabend
and Simon Huter of Frankfurt
1565
woodcut and letterpress
(Fame and Venus)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous German Artist
Mercury and Cupid
ca. 1730
hand-colored etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Giulio Romano
Bacchus
ca. 1520
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Philipp Otto Runge
Pleasures of the Hunt
ca. 1805
watercolor on paper
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Wiener Porzellanmanufaktur
Design for Marbled Pattern
ca. 1800
gouache on paper
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Pierre Woeiriot
Design for Sword Hilt
1555
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Roman Empire
Priestess with offerings for Apollo
AD 50-100
carnelian intaglio
Musei Capitolini, Rome

On a Portrait of Pindar – As much as the trumpet out-peals the fawn-bone flute, so much does thy lyre out-ring all others.  It was not idly, Pindar, that the swarm of bees fashioned the honeycomb about thy tender lips.  I call to witness the horned god of Arcady, who chanted one of thy hymns and forgot his reed pipe. 

On a Statue of Anacreon – Look, how old Anacreon stumbles from drunkenness and trails the mantle that falls down to his feet.  In spite of all he keeps one of his slippers on, but has lost the other.  Striking his lyre, he sings either of Bathyllus or beautiful Megisteus.  Save the old man, Bacchus, from falling.

On a Portrait of Agathias Scholasticus – The city, with the regard of a mother to her son, figured here Agathias the rhetor and verse-writer, admiring the harmony of his eloquence in both respects, giving him the portrait as a testimony of its love and his own literary skill; and with him it set up portraits of Memnonius, his father, and of his brother, representatives of a most venerable family.

On the Portrait of the Rhetor Aristides – Aristides put an end to the ancient quarrel that the cities of Ionia had about Homer's parentage.  For they all say, "It was Smyrna who gave birth to the divine Homer, even she who bore likewise the rhetor Aristides."

On a Statue of Pythagoras – The sculptor wished to portray not that Pythagoras who explained the versatile nature of numbers, but Pythagoras in discreet silence.  Perhaps he has hidden within the statue the voice that he could have rendered if he chose. 

On a Picture of Socrates – How wise was the painter!  He did not put life into the wax, doing this favour to the soul of Socrates.*

– from Book XVI (Epigrams of the Planudean Anthology) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1918)

*i.e. not imprisoning it in the body