Saturday, May 2, 2026

Lowered - I

attributed to Théodore Géricault
Study Head of Young Man
ca. 1810
oil on canvas
Musée Magnin, Dijon

Arthur Guéniot
The Mower
1896
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Sassoferrato (Giovanni Battista Salvi)
Praying Virgin
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes

Amaury-Duval
Head of the Virgin
1865
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

Hiram Powers
The Greek Slave
(bust version)
after 1846
marble
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Roman Empire
Head of Diadumenos
AD 120-130
marble
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Gaetano Gandolfi
Child at Table
ca. 1775
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Victor Müller
Head Study
ca. 1869-71
drawing
(study for painting, Romeo and Juliet)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

workshop of Jacopo Tintoretto
Study of Antique Head
ca. 1550-1600
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Andrea del Sarto
Head of a Woman
1523-24
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Wenceslaus Hollar after Leonardo da Vinci
Woman with Elaborate Hairstyle
1648
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Cesare da Sesto
Head of an Old Man
before 1523
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Albrecht Dürer
Head of Young Christ
1506
drawing
(study for painting, Christ among the Doctors)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Cesare Bacciocchi
Head of Young Man
before 1678
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

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

Guido Reni
Christ crowned with Thorns
1636-37
oil on copper
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

On the Aphrodite Anadyomene of Apelles – Look on the work of Apelles' pencil; Cypris, just rising from the sea, her mother; how, grasping her dripping hair with her hand, she wrings the foam from the wet locks.  Athena and Hera themselves will now say, "No longer do we enter the contest of beauty with thee."

On the Aphrodite Anadyomene of Apelles – Apelles saw Cypris herself brought forth by the sea, her nurse; and so he drew her, still wringing with her fresh hands her locks soaked with the foam of the waters. 

On the Aphrodite Anadyomene of Apelles – When Cypris, her hair dripping with the salt foam, rose naked from the purple waves, even in this wise holding her tresses with both hands close to her white cheeks, she wrung out the brine of the Aegean, showing only her bosom, that indeed it is lawful to look on; but if she be like this, let the wrath of Ares be confounded. 

On the Aphrodite Anadyomene of Apelles – The Paphian has but now come forth from the sea's womb, delivered by Apelles' midwife hand.  But back quickly from the picture, lest thou be wetted by the foam that drips from her tresses as she wrings them.  If Cypris looked thus when she stripped for the apple, Pallas was unrighteous in laying Troy waste. 

On the Aphrodite Anadyomene of Apelles – Apelles having seen Cypris, the giver of marriage blessing, just escaped from her mother's bosom and still wet with bubbling foam, figured her in her most delightsome loveliness, not painted, but alive.  With beautiful grace doth she wring out her hair with her finger-tips, beautifully doth calm love flash from her eyes, and her paps, the heralds of her prime, are firm as quinces.  Athena herself, and the consort of Zeus shall say, "O Zeus, we are worsted in the judgment." 

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