Sunday, June 12, 2016

Echoes of Ancient Art in later European Art I

Anonymous gem-cutter working in Milan
Cleopatra
sardonyx cameo
early 17th century
British Museum

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Mythological figure of Jason as garden statue
late 16th century
marble
Victoria & Albert Museum

The flaming breath of firie Bulles ye quenched for my sake
And caused their unwieldie neckes the bended yoke to take.
Among the Earthbred brothers you a mortall war did set,
And brought a sleepe the Dragon fell whose eyes were never shet.
By means whereof deceiving him that had the golden fleece
In charge to keepe, you sent it thence by Jason into Greece.  
Now have I neede of herbes that can by vertue of their juice
To flowring prime of lustie youth old withred age reduce.

 Ovid, from Medea's Invocation in the Metamorphoses, translated by Arthur Golding, 1567

Eugène Atget
Marble Faun as Garden Ornament, Versailles
ca. 1921-22
albumen silver print
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Battista Franco
Statue of Hercules
ca. 1530-61
etching
British Museum

Auguste Desnoyers after Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Ancient Statue of Eros as Archer
1807
engraving
British Museum

Lucas Kilian after Michelangelo
Statue of Hercules and Cacus
ca. 1600-1615
engraving
British Museum

circle of Bernardo Buontalenti
Sketches of Roman soldiers
16th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Hans Collaert
Design for a pendant
 based on Roman painted grotesques
1582
engraving
Victoria & Albert Museum

Giovanni Martino Hamerani
 Model for a relief-medallion portrait of Queen Christina of Sweden
ca. 1680
wax, slate
British Museum

Josiah Wedgwood
Relief plaque with Nymph from Herculaneum
ca. 1775-85
black basalt porcelain
Victoria & Albert Museum

Josiah Wedgwood
Roman Vase with Relief of Nymphs from Herculaneum
ca.1775-85
black basalt porcelain
Victoria & Albert Museum

Tommaso Costa
Cleopatra greeting Antony
1773
watercolor
British Museum

Jean Duplessi-Bertaux
Orestes Killing Clytemnestra
from an ancient relief in Palazzo Pitti, Florence
ca. 1792
etching
British Museum

workshop of Leonardo da Vinci
Statue of the Wolf of Rome on the Capitoline Hill
ca. 1513-16
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain