Geertgen tot Sint Jans The Holy Kinship ca. 1494 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Albrecht Dürer Lot and his daughters fleeing Sodom ca. 1496-99 oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Albrecht Dürer Madonna and Child ca. 1496-99 oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
The two Dürer panel-paintings directly above (Lot and his Daughters, and Madonna and Child) are painted on the front and back of the same panel. Curators at the National Gallery of Art have no conclusive explanation for this juxtaposition – "Since the combination of the story of Lot with the depiction of the Virgin and Child is extremely unusual, the exact relation of the two images remains unclear. However, they could be understood as two examples of the value of a just life and of the pervasive grace of God, especially if the Madonna and Child on the obverse was intended as a private devotional image."
Albrecht Dürer Feast of Rose Garlands 1506 oil on panel Národní Galerie, Prague |
Lucas Cranach the Elder Saints Christina and Ottilia 1506 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
Lucas Cranach the Elder Saints Genevieve and Apollonia 1506 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
Lucas Cranach the Elder Madonna and Child 1515 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
Jan van Scorel Left wing of Triptych, with Saints 1526 oil on panel Centraal Museum, Utrecht |
March has come to the bridge head,
Peach boughs and apricot boughs hang over a thousand gates,
At morning there are flowers to cut the heart,
And evening drives them on the eastward-flowing waters.
Petals are on the gone waters and on the going,
And on the back-swirling eddies,
But to-day's men are not the men of the old days,
Though they hang in the same way over the bridge-rail.
– from Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin by Li Po (AD 701-762), a translation by Ezra Pound – who names the Chinese poet 'Rihaku' – first published in Cathay (1915)
Hans Holbein Allegory of the Old and New Testaments 1530 oil on panel National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh |
Maarten van Heemskerck Triumphal Procession of Bacchus 1536-37 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
Cornelis Metsys Landscape with the Flight into Egypt ca, 1545-50 oil on panel Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona |
Frans Floris Marine Deities before 1570 oil on panel Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
Bartholomeus Spranger Fall from Paradise ca. 1593-95 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
Bartholomeus Spranger Epitaph of Goldsmith Nicolas Müller of Prague 1592-93 oil on canvas Národní Galerie, Prague |
Who list to live upright, and hold himself content,
Shall see such wonders in this world, as never erst was sent.
Such groping for the sweet, such tasting of the sour,
Such wand'ring here for worldly wealth that lost is in one hour.
And as the good or bad get up in high degree,
So wades the world in right or wrong it may none other be.
– lines from Of the Wretchedness in This World, credited to an 'Uncertain Author' and originally printed in Tottel's Miscellany (1557)