Vases

Félix Del Marle
Chemin de fer
1914
watercolor, gouache and ink on paper
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Arthur Tress
Act I: Birth of Ideas
1980
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Anonymous French Makers
Lidded Vase
ca. 1680
amethyst with enameled-gold and silver-gilt mounts
(collection of Louis XIV)
Musée du Louvre

Lady Ottoline Morrell
By the Pool at Garsington
ca. 1916
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Kenneth Price
Deep Heat
2004
acrylic and ink on paper
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Arthur Tress
Act I: Birth of Ideas: Beauty
1980
C-print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous French Makers
Lidded Vase
ca. 1550
agate with silver-gilt mounts
(collection of Louis XIV)
Musée du Louvre

Lady Ottoline Morrell
By the Pool at Garsington
ca. 1916
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Keith Haring
Apocalypse 1
1988
screenprint
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Arthur Tress
Act II: The Voyage
1980
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Anonymous French Makers
Pair of Lidded Vases
ca. 1770
porphyry with ormolu mounts
Musée du Louvre

Lady Ottoline Morrell
By the Pool at Garsington
ca. 1916
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein
Untitled
1954
oil on cardboard
Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin

Arthur Tress
Act III: The Final Judgement
1980
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Anonymous French Makers
Pair of Lidded Vases
18th century
Chinese porcelain with French ormolu mounts
Musée du Louvre

Lady Ottoline Morrell
By the Pool at Garsington
ca. 1916
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charles Ephraim Burchfield
The East Wind
1918
watercolor on paper
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

I am Athenian, that was my city,

raving Italian wars

took me from Athens long ago

to the city called Rome. Now I am dead,

island Kyzikos has covered my bones.

Farewell,

Earth, who reared me, earth who took me,

earth in whose lap I lay at last.

– from the Greek Anthology, translated by Peter Levi

Classical Close-ups

Rosalba Carriera
Diana
before 1757
pastel on paper
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Study of Antique Head
ca. 1524-27
drawing
Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe,
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Roman Empire
Bust of Caligula
1st century AD
marble
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Anonymous French Artist
Ariadne
17th century
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Antonino Salamanca
Andromache
ca. 1540-50
etching and engraving
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Serbaldi da Pescia Pier Maria (il Tagliacarne)
Bust of the Muse Polyhymnia
ca. 1500
porphyry
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Gustaf Magnusson
Antique Head of Apollo
ca. 1925
drawing
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Walter Hege
Head of the Bride Deidameia
West Pediment - Temple of Zeus at Olympia
1935
gelatin silver print
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Philipp Jakob Becker
Bust of Aesculapius
1783-84
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Peter Paul Rubens
Julius Caesar
ca. 1625-26
oil on panel
Leiden Collection, New York

Ancient Greece
Head of Victorious Boxer
330-320 BC
bronze
(statue fragment excavated at Olympia)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

František Tkadlík
Head of the Apollo Belvedere
1808
drawing
Národní Galerie, Prague

Pierre Philippe
Bust of Athena
1662
engraving (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Roman Empire
Herm - Bearded Deity
1st century AD
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Johannes Laurentius
Faces of the Roman Empire
(Altes Museum - Gallery View)
2010
photograph
Altes Museum, Berlin

Charley Toorop
Medusa Takes Sea
1939-41
oil on panel
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

"The reader will here find no regions cursed with irremediable barrenness, or blessed with spontaneous fecundity, no perpetual gloom or unceasing sunshine; nor are the nations here described either devoid of all sense of humanity or consummate in all private and social virtues.  . . .  He will discover, what will always be discovered by a diligent and impartial inquirer, that wherever human nature is to be found there is a mixture of vice and virtue, a contest of passion and reason, and that the Creator doth not appear partial in his distributions, but has balanced in most countries their particular inconveniences by particular favours." 

– Samuel Johnson, from the preface to his English translation of A Voyage to Abyssinia. This was originally a manuscript written in the 1660s by Father Jerónimo Lobo, a Portuguese Jesuit, about a mission he had pursued in the 1630s. Lobo's text remained unpublished until translated into French and printed in 1728, the same year Samuel Johnson entered Pembroke College, Oxford – where this French version of Lobo's Voyage was one of the "new" books the young scholar quickly found and read. Thirty years later he would set his own fictional Rasselas in Abyssinia.  

"In 1735, when Johnson's age was twenty-six, and the world seemed to have shut against him every door of hope, Johnson stayed for six months at Birmingham with his old schoolfellow Hector, who was aiming at medical practice, and who lodged at the house of a bookseller.  Johnson spoke with interest of Father Lobo, whose book he had read at Pembroke College.  Mr. Warren, the bookseller, thought it would be worthwhile to print a translation.  Hector joined in urging Johnson to undertake it, for a payment of five guineas.  Although nearly brought to a stop midway by hypochondriac despondency, a little suggestion that the printers also were stopped, and if they had not got their work had not their pay, caused Johnson to go on to the end.  He began work as a professional writer with this translation." 

 – from Henry Morley's introduction to a Victorian reprint of Johnson's translation, 1887

Italian Artefacts

Anonymous Italian Artist
Head of Livia
17th century
marble relief
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Anonymous Italian Artist
Head of Augustus
17th century
marble relief
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Anonymous Italian Artist after Giovanni Bellini
Circumcision of Christ
16th century
oil on panel
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

Anonymous Italian Artist
Flying Putto
16th century
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Anonymous Italian Artist
Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1450-1500
limestone
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Italian Artist after Andrea Mantegna
Portraits of Ludovico Gonzaga and Barbara of Brandenburg,
Marquis and Marchioness of Mantua
ca. 1450-1550
etching and engraving
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Anonymous Italian Artist
Penitent Magdalen
ca. 1625-50
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Italian Artist
Head of Emperor Septimius Severus
ca. 1600-1625
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Anonymous Italian Artist
Apollo Belvedere
ca. 1510
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous Italian Artist
Saint Carlo Borromeo
ca. 1625
red and white marble
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Anonymous Italian Artist
Julius Caesar
17th century
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous Italian Artist
Bust of Scipio Africanus
17th century
porphyry (head) and alabaster (body)
Hall of the Emperors, Galleria Borghese, Rome

Anonymous Venetian Artist
Woman with Parrots
16th century
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Anonymous Florentine Artist after Donatello
Virgin and Child
ca. 1450-1500
painted stucco relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Bolognese Artist
Half-Length Figure in Raking Light
ca. 1642-44
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Anonymous Italian Artist
Pressmark of the Giunti of Florence
1573
woodcut and letterpress
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Chorus of the daughters of Danaus:

Go now to the town, glorifying

the blessed lords, the gods, 

both those of the city and those who dwell around

the ancient stream of Erasinus.

Accept our song,

you escorts, and let praise enfold this city 

of the Pelasgians; no longer let us

sing in honour of the mouths of the Nile,

but of the rivers that pour their tranquil waters

through this land, to drink for health

and for fertility, softening the soil of the land

with their oil-smooth streams.

May chaste Artemis watch over

this band in pity, and may Cytherea's consummation

not come to us by compulsion:

may that prize be won only in Hades. 

Argive Soldiers:  

But it is a wise rule not to ignore Cypris;

for she holds power very close to Zeus, together with Hera,

a goddess of cunning wiles

who is honoured for awesome deeds.

Partners and associates with their dear mother

are Desire and the charmer Persuasion,

to whom nothing can be refused,

and also given to Aphrodite as her portion are Union

and the whispering paths of love-making.

For the fugitives I foresee and fear punishments still to come,

dire suffering and bloody wars:

why, why did they get good sailing

in their swift-sped pursuit? 

Whatever is fated, you know, that will happen –

the great, unfathomable mind of Zeus

cannot be crossed –

and this outcome, marriage, would be shared

with many women before you.

Chorus:  May great Zeus defend me 

                from marriage with the sons of Aegyptus!

Argive Soldiers:  That would certainly be best –*

Chorus:  You're trying to cajole the uncajolable. 

Argive Soldiers:  And you don't know the future.

– Aeschylus, from Suppliants (ca. 470-460 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*the Danaids, it seems, rightly infer that the Argives are about to urge them to be less uncompromising, and interrupt to insist that such advice will be wasted on them

Emperors

Roman Empire
Caligula
1st century AD (porphyry head)
17th century Italy (marble body)
Château de Versailles

Roman Empire
Claudius
AD 41
marble
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Roman Empire
Claudius
(recarved from a likeness of Caligula)
1st century AD
marble
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Cosimo Fancelli
Vitellius
1676
porphyry (head) and alabaster (body)
Hall of the Emperors,
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Tommaso Fedeli
Vespasian
1619
porphyry (head) and alabaster (body)
Hall of the Emperors,
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Ancient Greek Culture under the Roman Empire
Hadrian
AD 130
marble
(excavated in Athens)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Roman Empire
Hadrian as World Ruler
AD 130
sardonyx cameo
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture under the Roman Empire
Hadrian
AD 130-140
marble
(colossal statue fragment excavated in Athens)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Roman Empire
Lucius Verus
AD 150-200
marble
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Roman Empire
Marcus Aurelius
AD 160-180
marble
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Anonymous Italian Artist
Marcus Aurelius
ca. 1500
bronze plaquette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Joseph Claus
Caracalla
1757
marble
(after antique original)
Saint Louis Art Museum

Roman Empire
Caracalla
AD 196-204
marble
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Roman Empire
Gallienus
AD 260
marble
(excavated in North Africa)
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden

Roman Empire
Gemma Constantiniana
(Emperor and Family in Triumphal Chariot pulled by Centaurs)
AD 320-30 (sardonyx cameo)
17th century (gold mount)
formerly owned by Peter Paul Rubens
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden

Edme Bouchardon
Portrait of Baron Philipp von Stosch
as Roman Emperor
1727
marble
Bode Museum, Berlin

But Figulus more seene in heavenly mysteries,
Whose like Aegiptian Memphis never had
For skill in stars, and tune-full planeting,
In this sort spake. The worlds swift course is lawlesse
And casuall; all the starres at randome radge:
Or if Fate rule them, Rome thy Cittizens

Are neere some plague: what mischiefe shall insue?
Shall townes be swallowed? shall the thickned aire,
Become intemperate? shall the earth be barraine?
Shall water be conjeal'd and turn'd to ice?
O Gods what death prepare ye? with what plague
Mean ye to radge? the death of many men

Meetes in one period. If cold noysome Saturne

Were now exalted, and with blew beames shinde,
Then Gaynimede would renew Deucalions flood,

And in the fleeting sea the earth be drencht.
O Phœbus shouldst thou with thy rayes now sing
The fell Nemean beast, th' earth would be fired,
And heaven tormented with thy chafing heate,
But thy fiers hurt not: Mars, 'tis thou enflam'st

The threatning Scorpion with the burning taile
And fier'st his cleyes. Why art thou thus enrag'd?

Kind Jupiter hath low declin'd himselfe;
Venus is faint; swift Hermes retrograde;
Mars onely rules the heaven: why doe the Planets
Alter their course; and vainly dim their vertue?

– from the First Book of Lucan, translated by Christopher Marlowe (published 1600)