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| François Boucher Study of a Page before 1770 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| François Boucher Study of a Huntsman before 1734 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| attributed to François Boucher Study of Posed Models before 1770 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| attributed to François Boucher Académie before 1770 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
"This secret horror of the last is inseparable from a thinking being whose life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful. We always make a secret comparison between a part and the whole; the termination of any period of life reminds us that life itself has likewise its termination; when we have done anything for the last time, we involuntarily reflect that a part of the days allotted to us is past, and that as more is past there is less remaining."
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| Anonymous artist Académie ca. 1700-1800 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Anonymous artist Académie ca. 1700-1800 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Anonymous artist Académie ca. 1700-1800 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Anonymous British artist Académie ca. 1700-1800 drawing Tate Britain |
"It is very happily and kindly provided that in every life there are certain pauses and interruptions, which force consideration upon the careless, and seriousness upon the light; points of time where one course of action ends and another begins; and by vicissitudes of fortune, or alteration of employment, by change of place, or loss of friendship, we are forced to say of something, "this is the last.""
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| Anonymous French artist Four Figure Studies ca. 1700-1800 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Anonymous French artist Four Figure Studies ca. 1700-1800 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Charles-Antoine Coypel Académie before 1752 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Jan Ekels the Younger Académie 1786 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
"An even and unvaried tenor of life always hides from our apprehension the approach of its end. Succession is not perceived but by variation; he that lives today as he lived yesterday, and expects that, as the present day is, such will be the morrow, easily conceives time as running in a circle and returning to itself. The uncertainty of our duration is impressed commonly by dissimilitude of condition; it is only by finding life changeable that we are reminded of its shortness."
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| Jan Ekels the Younger Académie 1786 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Hendrik Lageman Académie ca. 1780-89 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
"This conviction, however forcible at every new impression, is every moment fading from the mind; and partly by the inevitable incursion of new images, and partly by voluntary exclusion of unwelcome thoughts, we are again exposed to the universal fallacy; and we must do another thing for the last time, before we consider that the time is nigh when we shall do no more."
– Samuel Johnson, from The Idler, no. 103, Saturday, 5 April 1760