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| Bartolomeo Manfredi Allegory of the Four Seasons ca. 1610 oil on canvas Dayton Art Institute |
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| Hendrik van Balen and Jan Brueghel the Younger Allegory of the Virtuous Life ca. 1625-26 oil on panel Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Willem van der Vliet An Allegory 1627 oil on canvas private collection |
"Walter Benjamin made a decisive step forward in our understanding of the Baroque when he showed that allegory was not a failed symbol, or an abstract personification, but a power of figuration entirely different from that of the symbol: the latter combines the eternal and the momentary, nearly at the center of the world, but allegory uncovers nature and history according to the order of time. It produces a history from nature and transforms history into nature in a world that no longer has a center. If we consider the logical relation of a concept to its object, we discover that the linkage can be surpassed in a symbolic and an allegorical way. Sometimes we isolate, purify, or concentrate the object; we cut all its ties to the universe, and thus we raise it up, we put it in contact no longer with a simple concept, but with an Idea that develops this concept morally and aesthetically. Sometimes, on the contrary, the object itself is broadened according to a whole network of natural relations. The object itself overflows its frame in order to enter into a cycle or a series, and now the concept is what is found increasingly compressed, interiorized, wrapped in an instance that can ultimately be called "personal."
– from The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque by Gilles Deleuze, originally published in 1988, translated by Tom Conley and published in English by University of Minnesota Press in 1993
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| Anthony van Dyck Allegorical Portrait of Venetia, Lady Digby 1633-34 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| Guercino Allegory of Painting and Sculpture 1637 oil on canvas Palazzo Barberini, Rome |
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| Simon Vouet Allegory of Wealth 1630-35 oil on canvas Louvre, Paris |
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| Johann Heinrich Schönfeld Allegory of Time, Chronos and Eros 1630s oil on canvas Palazzo Barberini, Rome |
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| Simon de Vos Allegory of the Five Senses 1640 oil on copper private collection |
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| Laurent de La Hyre Allegory of Music 1649 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Bernardino Mei Allegory of Justice 1656 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Luca Giordano Peter Paul Rubens painting an Allegory of Peace ca. 1660 oil on canvas Prado, Madrid |
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| Jacob Jordaens Allegory of the Poet ca. 1660 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Francesco Solimena Allegory of Rule 1690 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Sebastiano Ricci Allegory of Marcantonio Colonna's Victory at Lepanto 1693-95 ceiling fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |