Sunday, February 22, 2026

Valetudinary Likenesses

Odoardo Fialetti
Old Men with Raised Eyes
1608
etching
(illustration for drawing manual)
British Museum


Gianlorenzo Bernini
Pope Gregory XV Ludovisi
1621
marble
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Jacob van Campen
Old Woman with a Book
ca. 1625-30
oil on canvas
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

Samuel Hofmann
Philosopher
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Kunsthaus Zürich

Anonymous Italian Sculptor
Head of an Old Man
ca. 1750
plaster cast of ancient marble in the Albani Collection, Rome
Skulpturensammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Johann Georg Trautmann
Study of an Old Man
ca. 1760
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Józef Grassi
Portrait of Frau von Weinbrenner
1795
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Anselm Feuerbach
Old Woman Seated
1853
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Max Oppenheimer
Voltaire
1916
woodcut
Leopold Museum, Vienna

George Luks
Old Woman with White Pitcher
ca. 1926
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Edvard Munch
Portrait of Erik Pedersen
1943
pastel on paper
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Arthur Leipzig
Eleanor Roosevelt with Poor Old Woman
ca. 1943
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Sanford Roth
Frieda Lawrence
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Leon Levinstein
Untitled (New York)
ca. 1955
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Robert Hyndman
Portrait of Ethel Marion Hyndman
1955
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Thomas Hoepker
Sicilian Farmer
ca. 1957
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Leon Levinstein
New York
ca. 1965
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

from Divine Epigrams


        To Pontius washing his blood-stained hands.

Is murther no sin? or a sin so cheape,
                                        That thou need'st heape
A Rape upon't? till thy Adult'rous touch
    Taught her these sullied cheeks this blubber'd face,
She was a Nimph, the meadowes knew none such,
    Of honest Parentage of unstain'd Race,
The Daughter of a faire and well-fam'd Foutaine
As ever Silver-tipt, the side of shady mountaine.

See how she weeps, and weeps, that she appeares
                                        Nothing but Teares;
Each drop's a Teare that weeps for her own wast;
    Harke how at every Touch she does complaine her:
Harke how she bids her frighted Drops make hast,
    And with sad murmurs, chides the Hands that stain her.
Leave, leave, for shame, or else (Good judge) decree,
What water shal wash this, when this hath washed thee.

– Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple (1648)