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| François Bonvin The Attributes of Painting ca. 1875-80 oil on canvas Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham |
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| Frans van Mieris Pictura (Allegory of Painting) 1659-60 oil on copper Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Anne Vallayer-Coster Attributes of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture 1769 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Francesco Morosini Allegory of the Liberal Arts 1624 oil on panel Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Florence |
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| Antonio Gherardi Allegory of Painting ca. 1660-1700 oil on canvas Museo Civico di Palazzo dei Consoli, Gubbio |
The Three Graces
We have the picture of you in mind,
when you were young, posturing
(for a photographer) in scarves
(if you could have done it). But now,
for none of you is immortal, ninety
three, the three, ninety and three,
Mary, Ellen and Emily, what
beauty is it clings still about you?
Undying? Magical? For there is still
no answer, why we live or why
you will not live longer than I
or that there be an answer why
any should live and whatever other
should die. Yet you live. You live
and all that can be said is that
you live, time cannot alter it –
and as I write this Mary has died.
– William Carlos Williams (1949)
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| Domenico Piola School of Fine Arts (Allegory) ca. 1680 oil on canvas Palazzo Bianco, Genoa |
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| Federico Zuccaro Porta Virtutis (Gate of Virtue) Minerva Triumphant over Ignorance and Calumny, Allegory of Painting ca. 1585 oil on canvas Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino |
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| Domenico Corvi Allegory of Painting 1764 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Simone Cantarini Allegory of Painting ca. 1620-30 oil on canvas National Museum, Warsaw |
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| Giovanni Domenico Cerrini Allegory of Painting with Self-Portrait of the Artist ca. 1639 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin Still Life with Attributes of the Arts ca. 1724-28 oil on canvas Pushkin State Museum, Moscow |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin Still Life with Attributes of the Arts 1766 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Christoph Unterberger Ornamental Composition with Ignudi and Grotesques and an Allegory of Painting 1776 oil on canvas Worcester Art Museum Worcester, Massachusetts |
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| Winston Churchill Studio Still Life ca. 1930 oil on canvas National Trust, Chartwell, Kent |
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| Samuel Peploe Still Life with Paint Tubes ca. 1903 oil on panel Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland |
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| Renato Guttoso Still Life in the Studio 1962 ink and watercolour on paper Tate Modern, London |