Circumscribed - II

Christoffel Jegher after Peter Paul Rubens
Portrait of Emperor Charles V
ca. 1631-33
chiaroscuro woodcut
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Wilhelm von  Kobell
Return from the Hunt
ca. 1820
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Lucas van Leyden
Head of Warrior
1527
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Master of the Joseph Sequence
Joseph and Asenath
ca. 1490-1500
oil on panel
Bode Museum, Berlin

Giovanni Battista Mercati
St Catherine of Alexandria in Glory
ca. 1620-40
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Crispijn de Passe the Elder
Man and Woman weighing Gold
ca. 1595
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Raffaellino del Garbo
Virgin and Child with Musical Angels
ca. 1496-98
oil and tempera on panel
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jean-Baptiste Regnault
Sleeping Psyche and Cupid
ca. 1775-85
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Theodor Rehbenitz
Tobias and the Angel
ca. 1824
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Augustin de Saint-Aubin
Portrait of composer Jean-Philippe Rameau
ca. 1760
etching
Kupferstichkabinett,
Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg

Martin Schongauer
Lion of St Mark
ca. 1470-90
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giovanni Battista Scultori after Giulio Romano
Mars and Venus
before 1575
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Luca Signorelli
Head of a Young Man
ca. 1490-1500
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Philipp von Stubenrauch
Miniature Portrait of Young Woman and Man
1811
watercolor on ivory
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Johan Wierix
Portrait of a Man
1558
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

attributed to Johann Jakob Wirz
Portrait of Andreas Meyer
ca. 1750
drawing, with added watercolor
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

On the Two Homeric Poems – Homer, son of Meles, thou hast won eternal glory for Hellas and thy fatherland Colophon, and these two daughters didst thou beget by thy divine soul, writing from thy heart the twain tablets.  The one sings the many wanderings of Odysseus in his homecoming, and the other the Trojan war. 

On Homer – Who wrote on his pages the Trojan war, and who the long wanderings of the son of Laertes?  I cannot be certain about his name or his city.  Heavenly Zeus, can it be that Homer gets the glory of thine own poems?

On Homer – Of what country shall we record Homer to be a citizen, the man to whom all cities reach out their hands?  Is it not the truth that this is unknown, but the hero, like an immortal, left as a heritage to the Muses the secret of his country and race?  

On Homer – It was not the plain of Smyrna that gave birth to divine Homer; no, nor Colophon, the star of delicate Ionia; not Chios, nor fruitful Egypt, nor holy Cyprus, nor the rocky island that was the home of the son of Laertes, nor Argos, the land of Danaus and Cyclops-built Mycenae, nor the city of the ancient sons of Cecrops.  No, he was not Earth's work, but the Muses sent him from the sky to bring desirable gifts to the creatures of a day.

On Homer – Some say, Homer, that thy name was Colophon, some lovely Smyrna, some Chios, some Ios; while some proclaim fortunate Salamis, and some Thessaly, mother of the Lapiths, some this place, some that, to be the land that brought thee to the birth.  But if I may utter openly the wise prophecies of Phoebus, great Heaven is thy country, and thy mother was no mortal woman, but Calliope. 

On Homer – Seven cities claim to be the root of Homer: Cyme, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Pylos, Argos, Athens.

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

Circumscribed - I

Anonymous Swiss Artist
Portrait of writer Gottfried Keller
ca. 1890
watercolor and gouache on paper
(design for stained glass)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Anonymous German Artist
Ex Libris - Barbara Reihingin
1526
hand-colored woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Anonymous Netherlandish Artist
Portrait of Socrates
1574
engraving
(book illustration)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Sandro Botticelli
Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist and an Angel
ca. 1470
tempera on panel
National Museum, Warsaw

Hans Brosamer
The Judgment of Paris
before 1554
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Nicolaes de Bruyn
Trojan Hector
1594
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki
Medallion Monument to Princess Casimira von Lippe-Detmold
1780
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Andrea della Robbia
Madonna of Arezzo
ca. 1480
glazed terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Antonio Fantuzzi after Parmigianino
Circe offering Potion to Crew of Odysseus
ca. 1542
etching
Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome

Francesco di Giorgio Martini
St Jerome
ca. 1475
bronze plaquette
Bode Museum, Berlin

Heinrich Friedrich Füger
Jupiter and Minerva
ca. 1815
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Scott Gentling
Franz Joseph Haydn
1993
watercolor and gouache on paper
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Hans Holbein the Younger
Miniature Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1530
gouache on vellum
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Hendrik Hondius the Elder after Pieter Stevens
Colosseum, Rome
1600
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Daniel Hopfer
Roman Emperor Galba
before 1536
etching
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Pierre-Charles Ingouf after Pierre-Alexandre Wille
Portrait of artist Johann Georg Wille
1771
etching and engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

On the Lyre-playing Stone at Megara – As thou passest by Nisaea remember me, the musical stone; for when Alcathous was building his towered wall, then Phoebus lifted on his shoulder the building stone, laying down his Delphian lyre in me.  Hence I am a lyrist; strike me with a small pebble and get evidence of what I boast.

On a Bath at Praenetus in Bithynia – What is now a bath was formerly no bath, but a rubbish ground, a place of execration; but now it excels in splendour those delightful and lovely baths of which all men sing the praises.  For Alexander, the bishop of Nicaca, the star of illustrious learning, built it at his own expense. 

On a Picture of Victories – Here we are, the Victories, the laughing maidens, bringing victories to the city that loveth righteousness.  Those to whom the city is dear painted us, fashioning us in such forms as are proper to Victories.  

On the Dancer Helladia – The feminine nature excels in dancing: give way, ye young men!  The Muse and Helladia laid down this law, one because she first invented the rhythm of movement, the other because she reached perfection in the art. 

On the Dancer Helladia – Someone sung the lay of Hector, a new tune, and Helladia, donning a chlamys, accompanied the melody.  In the dancing of this goddess of war there was both desire and terror, for with virile strength she mingled feminine grace. 

On the Dancer Pylades – Pylades put on the divinity of the frenzied god himself, when from Thebes he led the Bacchants to the Italian stage, a delight and a terror to men, so full of his dancing did he fill all the city with the untempered fury of the demon.  Thebes knows but the god who was born of fire; the heavenly one is this whom we see brought into the world by these hands that can utter everything.*

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

*i.e. the real Bacchus was born from the fire as his mother Semele was incinerated, whereas this stage Bacchus is created by the expressive gestures of the dancer's hands – in this kind of dancing, more importance was attached to the movements of the hands than to those of the feet

In the Round - II

Moderno (Galeazzo Mondella)
Death of Hippolytus
ca. 1490-1510
bronze medallion
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Moderno (Galeazzo Mondella)
Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl
ca. 1500
bronze medallion
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Piero di Cosimo
Adoration of the Child
ca. 1500
tempera on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Pinturicchio (Bernardino di Betto)
Jupiter and Antiope
ca. 1509
detached fresco
(ceiling panel)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Pinturicchio (Bernardino di Betto)
Pan, Bacchus and Silenus
ca. 1509
detached fresco
(ceiling panel)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Apollo and the Muses on Mount Parnassus
ca. 1545
silver-gilt medallion
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Romulo Cincinnato
Noah and his Family making Burnt Offerings
1555
oil on panel
Národní Galerie, Prague

Pellegrino Tibaldi
Odysseus blinding Polyphemus
ca. 1560
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Anonymous Italian Artist after Annibale Carracci
Clytie with Cupid
ca. 1630-50
oil on panel
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Philippe de Champaigne
Christ and the Samaritan Woman
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen

Francesco Albani
Creation of Eve
ca. 1650-60
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Gaspard Dughet
Landscape with Figures on a Road
ca. 1650-60
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Jean Henry Alexandre Pernet
Roman Ruins with Fishermen
ca. 1785
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
Truth and Wisdom descending to Earth
1794
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Johannes Geisenhof
Modello for Dome Painting
1799
oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

William Wyon
Royal Academy of Arts Medal
(with the Belvedere Torso)
1874
silver
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

I am come to cry with you, woman,
My hair is unwound and unbound;
I remember him ploughing his field,
Turning up the red side of the ground,
And building his barn on the hill
With the good mortared stone;
O! we'd have pulled down the gallows
Had it happened in Enniscrone!

 – W.B. Yeats (1902)

In the Round - I

Ancient Greek Culture
Tetradrachma of Ionia with Head of Athena
150-145 BC
silver
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Spinello Aretino (Spinello di Luca)
Christ Blessing
ca. 1384-85
tempera on panel
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Cristoforo di Geremia
Constantine the Great
ca. 1468
medallion in copper alloy
Frick Collection, New York

Bertoldo di Giovanni
Lorenzo de' Medici, il Magnifico
1478
bronze medallion
(to commemorate the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy)
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous Italian Artist
 St Peter and St Paul
ca. 1523-34
silver testone of Pope Clement VII
Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Simon George of Cornwall
ca. 1535-40
oil on panel
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Gerlach Flicke after Hans Holbein the Younger
Miniature Portrait of Sir Anthony Denny
1541
oil on panel
(reduced copy of now-lost painting)
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

Jacques de Gheyn II
Self Portrait
ca. 1595-1600
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Guillaume Dupré
Marie de' Medici, Queen Consort of France
1600
gilt-bronze medallion
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Sebastian Dadler
Man of Sorrows
1631
silver medallion
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous British Artist
Miniature Portrait of Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland
ca. 1645-50
watercolor on ivory
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Luc Sicardi
Miniature Portrait of a Lady
ca. 1790-95
watercolor on ivory
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Louis-Roland Trinquesse
Portrait of Félix le Peletier, marquis de Saint-Fargeau
ca. 1790
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Anonymous French Artist
Miniature Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1795-1805
watercolor on ivory
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine
Miniature Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1795
watercolor on ivory
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Jean-Baptiste-Jacques Augustin
Miniature Portrait of artist Pauline Augustin
1801
watercolor on ivory
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Spinning Song

There are seven that pull the thread. 
One lives under the waves,
And one where the winds are wove,
And one in the old gray house
Where the dew is made before dawn;
One lives in the house of the sun,
And one in the house of the moon,
And one lives under the boughs
Of the golden apple tree;

And one spinner is lost.
Holiest, holiest seven,

Put all your power on the thread
I have spun in the house this night!

– W.B. Yeats (1901)