Anonymous Italian Art in Germany

Anonymous Italian Artist after Guido Reni
Sleeping Venus
18th century
pastel on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Anonymous Italian Artist
Virgin and Child with Angel and young St John the Baptist
ca. 1500
marble relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Italian Artist
Female Allegorical Figure
15th century
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Anonymous Venetian Artist
Portrait of a Boy
16th century
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Anonymous Italian Artist after Titian
Tree with Goats
ca. 1530
chiaroscuro woodcut
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous Florentine Artist
St Elizabeth
ca. 1450-1500
painted terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Roman Artist
Frieze of Prisoners and Trophies
16th century
drawing
(after exterior fresco by Polidoro da Caravaggio)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Anonymous Roman Artist
Abduction of the Sabine Women
17th century
drawing
(after exterior fresco by Polidoro da Caravaggio)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Anonymous Venetian Artist
Bust of Emperor Vitellius
17th century
white and colored marbles
(imitation of antique bust)
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Anonymous Italian Artist
Antique Relief of Wounded Soldier
1767
etching
(illustration to published edition of Winckelmann)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Anonymous Venetian Artist
Portrait of Doge Jacopo Tiepolo (died 1249)
ca. 1575
woodcut and letterpress (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Anonymous Italian Artist
Study of Antique Torso
18th century
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Anonymous Italian Artist after Filippino Lippi
Seated Youth
16th century
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Anonymous Italian Artist after Raphael
Caryatids
16th century
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Anonymous Florentine Artist
Figure Study
ca. 1600-1625
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Anonymous Italian Artist
Representation of Lymph Vessels
1627
chiaroscuro woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Tell, stranger, if ever thou dost come to Phthia, the land of vines, and to the ancient city of Thaumacia that, mounting once through the lonely woodland of Malea, thou didst see this tomb of Derxias the son of Lampo, whom once, as he hastened on his way to glorious Sparta, the bandits slew by treachery and not in open fight.

Aristo had his sling, a weapon procuring him a scanty living, with which he was wont to shoot the winged geese, stealing softly upon them so as to  elude them as they fed with sidelong-glancing eyes. Now he is in Hades and the sling noiseless and idle with no hand to whirl it, and the game fly over his tomb. 

Letoeus and Paulus, being two brothers, were united in life, and united in the predestined hour of their death, they lie by the Bosporus clothed in one shroud of dust. For they could not live apart from each other, but ran together to Persephone. Hail, sweet pair, ever of one mind; on your tomb should stand an altar of Concord.

Looking at my husband, as my life was ebbing away, I praised the infernal gods, and those of wedlock, the former because I left my husband alive, the latter that he was so good a husband. But may their father live to bring up our children.

Hades spoiled the ripe fruit of my youth and the stone hid me in this ancestral tomb. My name was Rufinus, the son of Aetherius and I was born of a noble mother, but in vain was I born; for after reaching the perfection of education and youth, I carried, alas! my learning to Hades and my youth to Erebus. Lament long, O traveler, when thou readest these lines, for without doubt thou art either the father or the son of living men. 

Thou art bound in brazen silence, Chryseomallus, and no longer dost thou figure to us the men of old time in dumb show.* Now, most gifted man, is thy silence, in which we once took delight, grievous to us. 

– from Book VI (Sepulchral Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

*he was a mime