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| Jan van Kessel the Elder Still Life with Vegetables and Fruit ca. 1660 oil on panel Palazzo Pretorio, Prato |
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| Adriaen van Utrecht Banquet Still Life 1644 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Gillis van Tilborgh the Younger Interior with a Social Gathering ca. 1655-75 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Gillis van Tilborgh the Younger Music-Making Company ca. 1655-60 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jan Brueghel the Elder River Landscape 1612 oil on panel Indianapolis Museum of Art |
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| follower of Jan Brueghel the Elder Landscape with a River ca. 1600-1625 oil on copper Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| attributed to Cornelis de Wael View of the Colosseum, Rome before 1667 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Peter Paul Rubens Peasant Dance ca. 1630-35 oil on panel Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Peter Paul Rubens and workshop Wise Rule of James I (sketch for Banqueting House ceiling, Whitehall) 1632-34 oil on canvas Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Jacob Jordaens Allegory of Fertility ca. 1630 oil on canvas Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Jacob Jordaens Allegory of Fertility (detail) ca. 1630 oil on canvas Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Denis Calvaert The Flagellation before 1619 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna |
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| Gérard Douffet The Last Supper ca. 1640 oil on canvas Musée d'Arts de Nantes |
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| Gérard Douffet Holy Family ca. 1650 oil on canvas Musée d'Art Religieux et d'Art Mosan, Liège |
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| Arnould de Vuez St Cecilia ca. 1695 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
Poem For My Birthday
I have stopped being the heroine
of my bad dreams. The melodramas
of betrayal and narrow escapes
from which I wake up grateful
for an unexciting life
are starring my troubled young friend
or one of my daughters. I'm not the one
who swims too far out to sea;
I am the one who waves from the shore
vainly and in despair.
Life is what happens to someone else;
I stand on the sidelines and wring my hands.
Strange, that my dreams should have accepted
the minor role I've been cast in
by stories since stories began.
Does that mean I have solved my life?
I'm still afraid in my dreams, but not for myself.
Fear gets rededicated
with a new stone that bears a needier name.
– Lisel Mueller (1988)