Value

Alexander Kanoldt
The Red Belt
1929
oil on canvas
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1788
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne

Ludwig Hohlwein
Münchner Illustrierte
(magazine)
ca. 1926
offset print (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Max Beckmann
Two Women
1940
oil on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Anonymous French Artist
Casque à la Minerve, ou, La Dragone
ca. 1780
drawing (print study)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Moritz Michael Daffinger
Portrait of Natalie, Baroness Vogel von Friesenhof
ca. 1835
watercolor miniature on ivory
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn
Portrait of Bartha van Montfoort
1634
oil on panel
David Collection, Copenhagen

attributed to Jacob Gole
Portrait of Mary II, Queen of England
ca. 1689-94
mezzotint
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Paulus Moreelse
Shepherdess
1624
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Wilhelm Leibl
Portrait of Lina Kirchdorffer
1871
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Vivant-Denon
Portrait of Madame Mosion
ca. 1780
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Daniel Gardner
Portrait of Mrs Anastasia Robinson
ca. 1785
pastel and gouache on paper, mounted on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Jacques-Louis David
Posthumous Portrait of Antoinette-Gabrielle Danton
(died in childbirth, wife of politician Georges Danton)
1793
oil on canvas
Musée Saint-Loup, Troyes

Gwen John
The Nun
ca. 1915-20
oil on canvas
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea

Anonymous Italian Artist
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1910
oil on panel
(forgery of Piero della Francesca)
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Yva (Else Simon)
Model wearing Adornments
from the Museum of Ethnology
1933
gelatin silver print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Where the sphere of practical objects ends, and that of "art" begins, depends, then, on the "intention" of the creators.  This "intention" cannot be absolutely determined.  In the first place, "intentions" are, per se, incapable of being defined with scientific precision.  In the second place, the "intentions" of those who produce objects are conditioned by the standards of their period and environment.  Classical taste demanded that private letters, legal speeches and the shields of heroes should be "artistic" (with the possible result of what might be called fake beauty), while modern taste demands that architecture and ash trays should be "functional" (with the possible result of what might be called fake efficiency).*

*"Functionalism" means, strictly speaking, not the introduction of a new aesthetic principle, but a narrower delimitation of the aesthetic sphere.  When we prefer the modern steel helmet to the shield of Achilles, or feel that the "intention" of a legal speech should be definitely focused on the subject matter and should not be shifted to the form ("more matter with less art," as Queen Gertrude rightly puts it), we merely demand that arms and legal speeches should not be treated as works of art, that is, aesthetically, but as practical objects, that is, technically.  However, we have come to think of "functionalism" as a postulate instead of an interdict.  The Classical and Renaissance civilizations, in the belief that a merely useful thing could not be "beautiful" ("non può essere bellezza e utilità," as Leonardo da Vinci puts it), are characterized by a tendency to extend the aesthetic attitude to such creations as are "naturally" practical; we have extended the technical attitude to such creations as are "naturally" artistic.  This, too, is an infringement, and, in the case of "streamlining," art has taken its revenge.  "Streamlining" was, originally, a genuine functional principle based on the results of scientific research on air resistance.  Its legitimate sphere was therefore the field of fast-moving vehicles and of structures exposed to wind pressure of an extraordinary intensity.  But when this special and truly technical device came to be interpreted as a general and aesthetic principle expressing the twentieth-century ideal of "efficiency" ("streamline your mind!"), and was applied to arm chairs and cocktail shakers, it was felt that the original scientific streamline had to be "beautified"; and it was finally retransferred to where it rightfully belongs in a thoroughly non-functional form.  As a result, we now less often have houses and furniture functionalized by engineers, than automobiles and railroad trains de-functionalized by designers.

– Erwin Panofsky, from The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (1940)

Bronzes

Ancient Greek Culture
Hydria
5th century BC
bronze
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Etruscan Culture
The Goddess Lasa
3rd-2nd century BC
bronze statuette
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Roman Empire
Bust of Plato
1st century AD
bronze relief appliqué
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Roman Empire
Mars
1st century AD
bronze statuette
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Roman Empire
Bust of Youth
1st-2nd century AD
bronze relief appliqué
(furniture ornament)
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Francesco di Giorgio Martini
St Anthony Abbot
ca. 1470-80
bronze plaquette
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi)
Bust of Emperor Marcus Aurelius
ca. 1500
gilt bronze
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Caradosso Foppa
Silenus and Maenads
1500
bronze plaquette
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Andrea Mantegna
St Sebastian
ca. 1500
gilt-bronze statuette
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Pietro Tacca
Tarquin and Lucretia
ca. 1630
bronze
Bode Museum, Berlin

Massimiliano Soldani after Gianlorenzo Bernini
Damned Soul
ca. 1705-1707
bronze
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Anton Mathias Joseph Domanöck
Venus at the Forge of Vulcan
1753
bronze relief
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
Maenad
ca. 1865
bronze
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Pablo Picasso
Jester
1905
bronze
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Einar Utzon-Frank
Head of Aphrodite
1915
bronze
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Anonymous Artist
 Young Hercules
20th century
bronze
(forgery of Greek antiquity)
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

All this while the Athenians at Pylus besieged the Lacedaemonians in the island, and the army of the Peloponnesians in the continent remained still upon the place.  This keeping of watch was exceedingly painful to the Athenians in respect of the want they had both of corn and water, for there was no well but one and that was in the fort itself of Pylus and no great one.  And the greatest number turned up the gravel and drank such water as they were like to find there.  They were also scanted of room for their camp and their galleys not having place to ride in, they were forced by turns some to stay ashore and others to take their victual and lie off at anchor.  But their greatest discouragement was the time which they had stayed there longer than they had thought to have done, for they thought to have famished them out in a few days, being in a desert island and having nothing to drink but salt water.  The cause hereof were the Lacedaemonians, who had proclaimed that any man that would should carry in meal, wine, cheese, and all other esculents necessary for a siege into the island, appointing for the same a great reward of silver; and if any Helot should carry in any thing, they promised him liberty.  Hereupon divers with much danger imported victual, but especially the Helotes, who, putting off from all parts of Peloponnesus, wheresoever they chanced to be, came in at the parts of the island that lay to the wide sea.  But they had a care above all to take such a time as to be brought in with the wind.  For when it blew from the sea, they could escape the watch of the galleys easily; for they could not then lie round about the island at anchor.  And the Helotes were nothing tender in putting ashore, for they ran their galleys on ground, valued at a price in money; and the men of arms also watched at all the landing places of the island.  But as many as made attempt when the weather was calm were intercepted.  There were also such as could dive, that swam over into the island through the haven, drawing after them in a string bottles filled with poppy tempered with honey, and pounded linseed; whereof some at the first passed unseen, but were afterwards watched.  So that on either part they used all possible art, one side to send over food, the other to apprehend those that carried it.  

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)

Laborious

Anonymous Dutch Forger
Laborers with Wheel-Barrow
late 19th century
drawing
(attempted forgery of Vincent van Gogh)
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Robert von Neumann
Hauling the Net
ca. 1940
lithograph
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas

Doris Ulmann
Workers with Tools
ca. 1930
platinum print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Jerome Liebling
Grain Worker
1950
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Sid Grossman
Illinois
1940
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Sid Grossman
Dinner Time - Hard Work makes for Hearty Appetites -
Edwardsville, Illinois
ca. 1945
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Adolph Treidler
For Every Fighter a Woman Worker
1918
lithograph (poster)
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Hugo Gellert
New Pioneer
1931
lithograph (magazine cover)
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Hugo Gellert
Victory Calendar
1942
lithograph and letterpress
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Hugo Gellert
March for Peace - May 1st
1952
lithograph
(pamphlet issued by United Labor
and People's Committee for May Day)
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Harry Gottlieb
Going to Work
ca. 1939
screenprint
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

Harry Gottlieb
Industrial Plant
1937
screenprint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Harry Gottlieb
The Next Shift
1940
screenprint
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

Harry Gottlieb
Bootleg Mining
ca. 1937-39
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

Harry Gottlieb
Slaughterhouse - Kinston, North Carolina
1927
gouache on paper
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

Charles Nègre
Vincennes Imperial Asylum Kitchen
1859
albumen silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Charles Nègre
Workman wielding Hammer
ca. 1850
collodion print from salted paper negative
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

from Medea

The rites deriv'd from ancient days

With thoughtless reverence we praise,

The rites that taught us to combine

The joys of music and of wine,

And bad the feast, and song, and bowl,

O'erfill the saturated soul;

But n'er the Flute or Lyre apply'd

To cheer despair, or soften pride,

Nor call'd them to the gloomy cells

Where Want repines, and Vengeance swells,

Where Hate sits musing to betray

And Murder meditates his prey. 

To dens of guilt and shades of care

Ye sons of Melody repair,

Nor deign the festive dome to cloy

With superfluities of joy.

Ah, little needs the Minstrel's pow'r

To speed the light convivial hour;

The board with varied plenty crown'd

May spare the luxuries of sound.

– Euripides (485-406 BC), translated by Samuel Johnson (1782)

Substantial

Georges Vantongerloo
Interrelation of Volumes
1919
sandstone
Tate Modern, London

Georges Vantongerloo
Élément Cosmique
1945
painted wood and nickel-alloy
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Georges Vantongerloo
Construction of Volumetric Interrelationships
1924
painted cement
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Pair of Bracelets
ca. 1876-82
gold and platinum
British Museum

Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Fish and Water Table Lamp
ca. 1902
glass, copper and bronze
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Lava Vase
ca. 1908
glass
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Skull
19th century
rock crystal
(sold ca. 1890 by Tiffany & Co. as a Mesoamerican antiquity
but modern testing suggests that it is a 19th-century forgery)
British Museum

Peter Tully
Jesus Christ Pin
ca. 1990
plastic and metal
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Staffordshire Potteries (England)
Mirror Box with Motto in Cover
1789
enameled earthenware
British Museum

Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Plaque with Hercules and the Arcadian Stag
(designed by John Flaxman)
ca. 1780-90
jasperware set into steel mount as brooch
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Thomas Schütte
Model for Crystal
2013
plywood and screws
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Isaac Witkin
Maquette for Chorale
1980
painted steel
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Isaac Witkin
Wild Iris
1973-74
painted steel
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Williams, Brown & Earle (Philadelphia)
Château de Voisins - Garden Sculpture
1936
hand-colored lantern slide
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

Williams, Brown & Earle (Philadelphia)
Château Vaux-le-Vicomte - Garden Sculpture
1936
hand-colored lantern slide
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

Joel-Peter Witkin
Anna Akhmatova
1998
gelatin silver print
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Joel-Peter Witkin
Poet: from a Collection of Relics and Ornaments (Berlin)
1986
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

    If thou dost complain that there shall be a time in the which thou shalt not be, why dost thou not too grieve that there was a time in the which thou wast not, and so that thou art not as old as that enlifening planet of time?  For, not to have been a thousand years before this moment, is as much to be deplored as not to be a thousand after it, the effect of them both being one: that will be after us which long long ere we were was.  Our children's children have that same reason to murmur that they were not young men in our days, which we have to complain that we shall not be old in theirs.  The violets have their time, though they empurple not the winter, and the roses keep their season, though they disclose not their beauty in the spring.

    Empires, states, kingdoms have, by the doom of the supreme providence, their fatal periods; great cities lie sadly buried in their dust; arts and sciences have not only their eclipses, but their wanings and deaths; the ghastly wonders of the world, raised by the ambition of ages, are overthrown and trampled; some lights above, deserving to be entitled stars, are loosed and never more seen of us; the excellent fabric of this universe itself shall one day suffer ruin, or a change like ruin; and poor earthlings thus to be handled complain!

– William Drummond of Hawthornden, from A Cypress Grove (London: Hawthornden Press, 1919, reprinting the original edition of 1623)