Proles

Vincent van Gogh
Woman planting Potatoes
1885
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Anonymous Dutch Artist after Jan Saenredam
Adam tilling the Soil
ca. 1650-1700
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Adam Elsheimer
Excavation of the True Cross
before 1610
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Tiburzio Passarotti
Youth lifting a Rock
ca. 1590
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anna Ancher
Harvest Time
1901
oil on canvas
Fuglsang Kunstmuseum, Lolland, Denmark

Franz Xaver Reinhold
Corn Harvest
ca. 1840
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Hieronymus Hopfer after Marcantonio Raimondi
Harvesters overseen by Silenus and the Pope
ca. 1540
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Anton Romako
Peasant Girl in the Roman Campagna
1873
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Adriaen van de Velde
Study of Farm Woman
before 1672
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Adriaen van de Velde
Peasant on Horseback
before 1672
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Sebald Beham
Farmer going to Market
1520
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

August Sander
Young Farmer
1912-13
gelatin silver print
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Daniel Steudner after Matthias Scheits
Winter
(series, The Four Seasons)
ca. 1515-20
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Daniel Steudner after Matthias Scheits
Spring
(series, The Four Seasons)
ca. 1515-20
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Leopold Kalckreuth
Sunday Afternoon
1893
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Ludwig Johann Passini
Pumpkin Seller in Chioggia
1876
watercolor on paper
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

The next winter, Aristides, the son of Archippus, one of the commanders of a fleet which the Athenians had sent out to gather tribute from their confederates, apprehended Artaphernes, a Persian, in the town of Eion upon the river Strymon, going from the king to Lacedaemon.  When he was brought to Athens, the Athenians translated his letters out of the Assyrian language into Greek and read them; wherein, amongst many other things that were written to the Lacedaemonians, the principal was this: that he knew not what they meant, for many ambassadors came, but they spake not the same thing; if therefore they had any thing to say certain, they should send somebody to him with this Persian.  But Artaphernes they sent afterwards away in a galley, with ambassadors of their own, to Ephesus.  And there encountering the news that king Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, was lately dead (for about that time he died), they returned home.   

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)