Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts

Saturday, December 13, 2025

Déesses

Peter Candid
Minerva as Friedensbringerin
ca. 1615-20
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich


Simon Fokke
Minerva displaying a Painting of the Holy Family
1741
etching
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Piero Paolo Galeotti
Minerva in Armor
1562
bronze medallion
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Isaac de Joudreville
Minerva in her Study
ca. 1631
oil on panel
Denver Art Museum

Gottfried Bernhard Göz
Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria instructed by Minerva
ca. 1745
etching
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Constantin Hansen
Birth of Pallas Athena
1869
oil on canvas
Kunsten Museum, Aalborg, Denmark

Paris Bordone
Athena scorning the Advances of Hephaestus
ca. 1555-60
oil on canvas
Museum of Art and Archaeology,
University of Missouri, Columbia

Nicoletto da Modena
Pallas Athena
ca. 1500-1510
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Bartholomeus van der Helst
Diana the Huntress
ca. 1640-50
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Michel Dorigny
Goddess Diana as Huntress
1612
oil on canvas
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

Alessandro Gherardini
Diana resting with Putto and Hounds
ca. 1705
detached fresco
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Bath of Diana
ca. 1869-70
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Johann Heiss
Artemis of Ephesus as Allegory of Fertility
ca. 1680-90
oil on canvas
private collection
(image from Galerie Neuse, Bremen, 2021)

Crispijn de Passe the Elder
Juno and Jupiter
ca. 1620
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Domenico Maria Fratta after Donato Creti
The Enchantress Circe
before 1763
etching
British Museum

Cristofano Robetta after Filippino Lippi
Two Muses
ca. 1520
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

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

from Hymn to Aphrodite

Sing, Muse, the Force, and all-informing Fire
Of Cyprian Venus, Goddess of Desire:
Her Charms, th' Immortal Minds of Gods can move,
And tame the stubborn Race of Men to Love.
The wilder Herds and ravenous Beasts of Prey,
Her Influence feel, and own her kindly Sway.
Thro' pathless Air, and boundless Ocean's Space,
She rules the feather'd Kind and finny Race;
Whole Nature on her sole Support depends,
And far as Life exists, her Care extends.

– Homeric Hymns (8th-6th century BC), translated by William Congreve (1710)

Friday, April 26, 2024

Men Scrutinizing Female Heads - Paintings / Pastels

Ercole de’ Roberti
Head of Mourning Woman
ca. 1490
tempera and oil on panel
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Master of the Half-Lengths
Head of a Woman
ca. 1540
oil on panel
National Gallery, London

John de Critz the Elder
Anne of Denmark, Queen of England
1605
oil on panel
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1620-30
oil on panel
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Nathaniel Thach
Woman in Masque Costume
1649
watercolor miniature on vellum
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Giuseppe Nogari
Study of a Woman
ca. 1740-43
pastel and watercolor
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Pietro Rotari
Sleeping Girl
ca. 1760-62
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Richard Cosway
Portrait of Elizabeth, Countess of Hopetown
1789
watercolor and gouache miniature on ivory
Yale Center for British Art

Jean-Léon Gérome
Head of an Italian Woman
ca. 1843
oil on canvas
(painted in Rome)
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Charles Edward Perugini
I Know a Maiden Fair to See
1868
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Minneapolis Institute of Art

William Merritt Chase
Head of a Girl
ca. 1880
pastel on brown paper
Yale University Art Gallery

Jean-Jacques Henner
Head of a Young Woman
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art

André Derain
Head of a Woman
1923
oil on canvas
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Guy Pène du Bois
Head of a Woman
ca. 1940-50
oil on paper
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor
Study of a Woman
1957
oil on board
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Frank Auerbach
Head of J.Y.M.
1978
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

To One in Paradise

Thou wast that all to me, love,
     For which my soul did pine –
A green isle in the sea, love,
     A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
     And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last! 
     Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
     A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!" – but o'er the Past
     (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me
     The light of Life is o'er!
No more – no more – no more –
     (Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
     Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
     And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy grey eye glances,
     And where thy footstep gleams –
In what ethereal dances,
     By what eternal streams!

– Edgar Allen Poe (1843)

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Men Scrutinizing Female Heads - Prints

Rembrandt
Head of an Old Woman
ca. 1631
etching
Morgan Library, New York

Giuseppe Garofalo after Annibale Carracci
Head of a Woman
ca. 1750
etching (for drawing manual)
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Louis-Marin Bonnet after Sébastien Leclerc
Head of a Young Woman turned away
1774
hand-colored stipple engraving
Yale Center for British Art

Edward Scriven
Study of Sculpted Head
(Renaissance Woman)

ca. 1820
aquatint
Princeton University Art Museum

Andrew Geddes
Head of an Old Woman
ca. 1820
etching
Tate Gallery

William Strang
Head of a Woman
ca. 1881
etching
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Alphonse Legros
Head of a Young Woman
ca. 1880
etching and drypoint
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Alphonse Legros
Head of a Woman
ca. 1890
etching and drypoint
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

John William Waterhouse
Head of a Woman
1896
lithograph
Yale Center for British Art

Jan Toorop
Head of Marguérite Adolphine Helfrich
1897
drypoint
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Augustus John
The Woolen Hat
1919
etching
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Pablo Picasso
Head of a Woman
1925
lithograph
Yale University Art Gallery

André Derain
Tête de Femme - Rêverie no. 2
1927
lithograph
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

John Souter
Head of a Canadian Woman
ca. 1930
etching
Yale Center for British Art

Gerald Brockhurst
Head of Anais
1944
lithograph
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Roy Lichtenstein
Modern Art II
1996
screenprint
Tate Gallery

A Portrait

For Gertrude Buckman

Yes, she craves diminutive things:
The sea shell and the carousel
Obliquely seen through an opera glass,
And the faint colors on the wind that pass;
Not the red of the loud bell
But the shadow echoed in the well.

Yes, she is aware of innuendo:
The splendid underscoring of these things;
A skull is therefore Mexico,
And the hummingbird sings
Loudest.  Not the jay, nor the gull,
But the ultimate infinitesimal. 

Yes, she believes in overtones:
The statues alive at twilight;
Not the word said, but the word unspoken,
Not the gift, but the token.
To her, a pinpoint instant star
Is the history of all incredible light. 

– Howard Moss (1946)

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Men Scrutinizing Female Heads - Drawings - II

Alfred George Stevens
Head of a Woman
ca. 1863
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Head of a Woman
ca. 1865
drawing
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Head of a Young Woman
ca. 1870
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Alphonse Legros
Head of a Woman
1879
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Frederick Sandys
Head of a Woman
ca. 1880
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

John Singer Sargent
Head of a Young Woman
ca. 1880
drawing
Yale University Art Gallery

Edward Burne-Jones
Head of a Woman
1889
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen
Head of a Woman
ca. 1890
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Jean-Jacques Henner
Head of a Woman
1901
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Joan González
Face of a Woman
ca. 1902
drawing
Tate Gallery

Joseph Southall
Head of a Woman
1904
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Augustus John
Head of a Woman
ca. 1905
drawing
Yale Center for British Art

Pablo Picasso
Head of a Woman (Fernande Olivier)
1906-1907
drawing
Yale University Art Gallery

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Head of a Woman
ca. 1910
drawing
Yale Center for British Art

Henry Lamb
Portrait of Violet Holloway
ca. 1910
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

James Havard Thomas
Head of Alma Wertheimer
ca. 1910
drawing
Tate Gallery

Edmund Joseph Sullivan
The Sibyl
ca. 1914
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

James Cowie
Head of a Woman
ca. 1930
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

For Eurydice: A Song of Ascent

The songs I sang in Hell
Recalled for each his fate,
Not metaphysical freight
But the mechanical –
Beginning, middle and end
Of each eternal chore –
Till every shade deplore
Having to recontend.

So fierce those cries for change
That Hades ordered us
To leave his realm, and thus
We now approach the strange
World of the living, where
All seek stability
Through blind activity,
And comfort through despair.

– David Galler (1974)