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| Gerard David God the Father bestowing a Benediction (detail of Polittico della Cervara) ca. 1506-10 oil on panel Musée du Louvre |
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| Master of 1518 Lazarus (detail of Dieleghem Abbey Triptych) ca. 1510-25 oil on panel Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Bernard van Orley Figure in Panic (detail of Virtue of Patience Triptych) 1521 oil on panel Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Quentin Metsys Penitent Magdalen ca. 1525 oil on panel Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
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| Jan Gossaert Donor with a Rosary (fragment of diptych) ca. 1525-30 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Jan Gossaert Portrait of a Young Princess holding an Armillary Sphere ca. 1530 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Jan Gossaert Portrait of a Couple ca. 1520 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Pieter Coecke van Aelst Study Head of a Man ca. 1525-50 watercolor and gouache private collection |
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| Jan Massys Susanna and the Elders (detail) 1567 oil on panel Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Crispin van den Broeck Portrait of Two Youths, probably Brothers before 1591 oil on panel Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Anthony van Dyck Self Portrait ca. 1630 oil on canvas Indianapolis Museum of Art |
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| attributed to Charles Wautier Death of Seneca ca. 1640 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Gérard Douffet Portrait of a Gentleman ca. 1650 oil on canvas Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence |
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| Hendrick de Somer (Enrico Fiammingo) The Smoker, or, Allegory of Transience before 1656 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Arnould de Vuez St Zita 1696 oil on canvas Musée de l'Hospice Comtesse, Lille |
from Paradise Lost (book 8)
The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice that he a while
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear;
"What thanks sufficient, or what recompense
Equal, have I to render thee, divine
Historian, who thus largely hast allayed
The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed
This friendly condescension to relate
Things else by me unsearchable – now heard
With wonder, but delight, and, as is due,
With glory, attributed to the high
Creator? Something yet of doubt remains,
Which only thy solution can resolve.
When I behold this goodly frame, this World,
Of Heaven and Earth consisting, and compute
Their magnitudes – this Earth, a spot, a grain,
An atom, with the firmament compared
And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll
Spaces incomprehensible (for such
Their distance argues, and their swift return
Diurnal) merely to officiate light
Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot,
One day and night; in all their vast array
Useless besides; reasoning, I oft admire
How Nature, wise and frugal, could commit
Such disproportions, with superfluous hand
So many nobler bodies to create,
Greater so manifold, to this one use,
For aught appears, and on their orbs impose
Such restless revolution day by day
Repeated, while the sedentary Earth,
That better might with far less compass move,
Served by more noble than herself, attains
Her end without least motion, and receives,
As tribute, such a sumless journey brought
Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light;
Speed, to describe whose swiftness number fails."
– John Milton (1674)