School of the Carracci (Bologna) Galatea and Companion riding Dolphin ca. 1590 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
Finger Ring 16th century enameled gold with table-cut diamond Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
attributed to Perino del Vaga Infantry Captain with Pike and Sword (costume study) ca. 1535-47 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Something Lost
How changed is Nature from the Time antique!
The world we see to-day is dumb and cold:
It has no word for us. Not thus of old
It won heart-worship from the enamoured Greek.
Through all fair forms he heard the Beauty speak;
To him glad tidings of the unknown were told
By babbling runlets, or sublimely rolled
In thunder from the cloud-enveloped peak.
He caught a message at the oak's great girth,
While prisoned Hamadryads weirdly sang:
He stood where Delphi's Voice had chasm-birth,
And o'er strange vapour watched the Sibyl hang;
Or where, mid throbbings of the tremulous earth,
The caldrons of Dodona pulsed and rang.
– Edward Cracroft Lefroy (1855-1891)
Giovanni Bernardi after Michelangelo Fall of Phaeton ca. 1531-35 engraved rock-crystal Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
Valerio Belli Adoration of the Shepherds ca. 1530-46 engraved rock-crystal Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
Niclauss Kippell Una Corteggiana Venetiana (Fashion-plate from Venetian manuscript costume-book) ca. 1588 ink and tempera on paper Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi) Bust of Cleopatra ca. 1519-22 bronze Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Giovanni Francesco Rustici St John the Baptist ca. 1505-1515 glazed terracotta statuette Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Andrea Salviati Soldier lifting a curtain ca. 1550-55 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
On the Beach in November
My heart's Ideal, that somewhere out of sight
Art beautiful and gracious and alone –
Haply where blue Saronic waves are blown
On shores that keep some touch of old delight –
How welcome is thy memory, and how bright,
To one who watches over leagues of stone
These chilly northern waters creep and moan
From weary morning unto weary night.
O Shade-form, lovelier than the living crowd,
So kind to votaries, yet thyself unvowed,
So free to human fancies, fancy-free,
My vagrant thought goes out to thee, to thee,
As wandering lonelier than the Poet's cloud,
I listen to the wash of this dull sea.
– Edward Cracroft Lefroy (1855-1891)
follower of Andrea Salviati Soldier with raised shield ca. 1560-80 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Giovanni della Robbia and workshop Adam and Eve ca. 1515 glazed terracotta relief Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
Giovanni della Robbia Judith with the Head of Holofernes ca. 1520 glazed terracotta statuette Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
attributed to Bartolomeo Passarotti The Assumption before 1592 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Bartolomeo Passarotti Two studies of an outstretched right arm before 1592 red chalk drawing by Passarotti, later retouched in red wash by Peter Paul Rubens Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Pietro Francavilla Apollo victorious over Python 1591 marble Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
Poems are from Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems, including a reprint of Echoes from Theocritus / by Edward Austin Gill, with a critical estimate of the sonnets by the late John Addington Symonds (London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1897)