Beautiful Italy and Classical Landscapes (19th century)

Antonio Acquaroni
Forum of Trajan, Rome
1827
drawing
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Edward Lear
Ear of Dionysius (Orecchio di Dionisio)
1842
drawing
Minneapolis Institute of Art

George Arthur Fripp
View of Tivoli
1842
watercolor and gouache
Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Blue Grotto

The boatman rowed into
That often-sung impasse.
Each visitor foreknew
A floor of lilting glass,
A vault of stone, lit blue.

But here we faced the fact.
As misty expectations
Dispersed, and wavelets thwacked
In something like impatience,
The point was to react.

Alas for characteristics!
Diane fingered the water.
Don tested the acoustics
With a paragraph from Pater.
Jon shut his eyes – these mystics –

Thinking his mantra. Jack
Came out with a one-liner,
While claustrophobiac
Janet fought off a minor
Anxiety attack.

Then from our gnarled (his name?)
Boatman (Gennaro!) burst
Some local, vocal gem
Ten times a day rehearsed.
It put us all to shame:

The astute sob, the kiss
Blown in sheer routine
Unselfconsciousness
Before one left the scene . . .
Years passed, and I wrote this.

– James Merrill (1982)

Gustav Klimt
Renaissance Italy
(decorative painting for the Kunsthistorisches Museum)
1891-
pigment on plaster
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt
Renaissance Florence
(decorative painting for the Kunsthistorisches Museum)
1891
pigment on plaster
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt
Renaissance Venice
(decorative painting for the Kunsthistorisches Museum)
1891
pigment on plaster
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt
Ancient Greece 
(decorative painting for the Kunsthistorisches Museum)
1891
pigment on plaster
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Carlo Labruzzi
Grotto of Tiberius at Sperlonga
early 19th century
watercolor
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Carlo Labruzzi
Landscape with Ruins
early 19th century
watercolor
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Elihu Vedder
Storm in Umbria
1875
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Monte Pincio, Rome
ca. 1840-50
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Théodore Caruelle d'Aligny
Corinth - Temple of Neptune
1845
etching
Art Institute of Chicago

Théodore Caruelle d'Aligny
The Acropolis of Athens
1845
etching
Art Institute of Chicago

Jakob Alt
View of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli
and the Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome
1835
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Modern Curiosities (Vienna)

Ancient Egypt
Standing Figure of the Court Official Snofru-nefer
2400 BC
limestone statue (half life-size)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Egypt
Stele
1850 BC
incised and painted limestone
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Egypt
Triad of Memphis
(Ptah, Sachmet and Nefertem)
640-610 BC
faience
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Roman Egypt
Sarcophagus Fragment
AD 130-150
painted stucco and glass
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Roman Egypt
Mummy Portrait of a Woman
AD 161-192
encaustic on wood
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greek Culture on Cyprus
Votive Statue of a Man
550-525 BC
limestone
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greek Culture in South Italy
Hydria
(Return of Hephaestus to Olympus)
525 BC
painted terracotta
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Hephaestus Alone

His heart is like a boat that sets forth alone
on the ocean and goes far out from him,
as Aphrodite proceeds on her pleasure journeys.
He pours the gold down the runnels
into a great mystery under the sand.
When he pulls it up by the feet
and knocks off the scale, it is a god.
What is it she finds with those men
that equals this dark birthing? The deities
remain invisible in their pretty gardens
of grass and violets, of daffodils and jasmine.
Even his wife lives like that. Going on yachts,
speaking to the captains in the familiar.
Let them have it, the noons and rain and joy.
He makes a world here out of frog songs
and packed earth. He made his wife
so she contains the green-fleshed
melons of Lindos, thalo blue of the sea,
and one ripe peach at five in the morning.
He fashioned her by the rules, with love,
made her with rage and disillusion.

– Linda Gregg (1942-2019)

Ancient Greece
Signet Ring
(Aphrodite and Eros)
4th-3rd century BC
gold
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Grave Stele of Parmeniskos 
200 BC (Hellenistic)
limestone
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Head of Serapis
2nd century BC (Hellenistic)
sard intaglio
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous European Maker
Head of Young Hercules
18th century
carnelian intaglio
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous European Maker
Apollo Kitharoedus
ca. 1700-1750
sard intaglio
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous European Maker
Specimen mounted to resemble Trees
16th century
coral
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Italian Maker
Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1650
oil on alabaster in gold and silver frame
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Faces in Limestone, Silver, Marble, Bronze, Alabaster (Vienna)

Ancient Egypt
Reserve Head from Burial Chamber
ca. 2600-2500 BC
limestone
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece (Rhodes)
Tetradrachma with image of Helios
ca. 404-385 BC
silver
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Rome
Head of a Matron
ca. 40 BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

attributed to Jörg Muskat
Eleanor of Portugal, Holy Roman Empress
ca. 1500-1510
bronze
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Sculptor working in Padua
Portrait of Marc Antonio della Torre
ca. 1500-1520
bronze-
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

attributed to Antonio Lombardo
Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1505
bronze
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Sculptor working in the Netherlands
Emperor Charles V
ca. 1530-35
alabaster
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

attributed to Agostino Zoppo
Bust of a Scholar of Padua
ca. 1550-60
bronze
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous sculptor working in Venice
Bust of Dying Gaul
(after an antique marble)
ca. 1580
bronze
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

François Duquesnoy
Bust of St Susanna
ca. 1630-35
bronze
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

from Among School Children

Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother's reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts – O presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise –
O born self-mockers of man's enterprise . . .

– William Butler Yeats (1926)

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Bust of Pope Alexander VII Chigi
ca. 1657
bronze
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Matthäus Donner
Bust of Empress Maria Theresa
1750
bronze
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
Portrait of Gerard van Swieten
ca. 1770-72
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Antonio Canova
Bust of Emperor Franz I
1805
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Grecian Marbles in Vienna

Ancient Greece
Fragment from the Northern Frieze of the Parthenon
442-438 BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

This fragment with two young horsemen came from the northern frieze of the Parthenon.  It was probably acquired in Venice by Marchese Tommaso degli Obizzi (died 1805) for his collection at Catajo Castle near Este (also known as the Este-Catajo collection).  Much of the temple had been destroyed in 1687 during the siege by Venetian troops, and this fragment was likely carried home as a war souvenir at that time.  The general European prestige of the Parthenon sculptures did not then exist, only evolving toward the end of the 18th century.  Catajo Castle and its contents passed into the hands of the Austrian royal family by inheritance during the 19th century.     

Ancient Greece
Wounded Amazon
ca. 400-350 BC
marble relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

This relief was found in front of the theater in the ruined city of Ephesus on the Ionian coast (now part of Turkey).  There, it was installed in the street pavement.  Presumably it was originally created for the late classical Temple of Artemis (or the Artemision) of Ephesus, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.  The wounded Amazon is believed to have composed part of the frieze ornamenting that structure.  It came to Austria in the early 20th century as a gift from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to Emperor Franz Joseph. 

Ancient Greece
Battle of Greeks and Amazons
ca. 350-300 BC
marble sarcophagus
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The sarcophagus was discovered on the island of Cyprus in 1557 and taken to Venice.  By 1567 it was in the possession of the Venetian branch of the Fugger family, prominent traders from Augsburg.  The Hapsburgs acquired it in the early 17th century and brought it to Vienna.  There, it was installed in a palace garden.  By the early 19th century the sarcophagus had been brought indoors as part of the Antikenkabinett, later incorporated into the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Ancient Greece
Muse
ca. 330-320 BC
marble statue
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Muse's arms and hands (holding flutes) are not original, but are products of a modern restorer's fantasy.  This statue is classified by the Kunsthistorisches Museum as late 4th-century Greek work, but then also (confusingly) described as a later Roman copy.  The same obscure curatorial discrepancy between label and description applies to several of the other "Greek" pieces shown below.

Ancient Greece
Head of Eros
3rd century BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Female Figure
3rd century BC
marble statue
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Head Arsinoe III (Ptolomaic Queen)
ca. 225-200 BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Figure of Young Man
ca. 200 BC
marble relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Centaur
2nd-1st century BC
marble statue
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Dancing Muse
2nd-1st century BC
marble statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Head of Satyr
2nd century BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Grave Stele of Dionysios and Melitine
ca. 125-100 BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Head of Artemis
ca. 120 BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Portrait Statue of a Man
ca. 100 BC
marble fragment
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna