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| Maarten van Heemskerck Vulcan revealing Venus and Mars to the mockery of the Gods ca. 1540 oil on panel (cut down from full-length to half-length) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Pieter Aertsen Return from a Pilgrimage to St Anthony 1550 oil on panel Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Anonymous Netherlandish Artist after Cornelis Cort Battle of Zama ca. 1567-78 oil on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Dirk de Quade van Ravesteyn Venus and Cupid riding Satyrs ca. 1589-1608 oil on panel Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Isaac Claesz Swanenburg Production of Wool - Fulling and Dyeing ca. 1596-98 oil on panel Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden |
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| Isaac Claesz Swanenburg Production of Wool - Shearing and Combing ca. 1595 oil on panel Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden |
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| Isaac Claesz Swanenburg Production of Wool - Washing and Grading Skins ca. 1596-98 oil on panel Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden |
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| Cornelis van Haarlem Wedding of Peleus and Thetis 1592-93 oil on panel Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem |
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| Hieronymus van der Elst Sons instructed to shoot at their father's corpse (in deep background), with Solomon identifying the legitimate son as the one who refuses to shoot (scene from the Gesta Romanorum) ca. 1600-1610 oil on canvas Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht |
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| Abraham Bloemaert Theagenes receiving the Palm of Honor from Chariclea (scene from the Aethiopica of Heliodorus) 1626 oil on canvas Mauritshuis, The Hague |
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| Willem van der Vliet An Allegory 1627 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Moses van Uyttenbroeck Wooded Pool with Salmacis and Hermaphroditus ca. 1627 oil on panel Mauritshuis, The Hague |
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| Adriaen van de Venne Woman and Jester ca. 1630-40 oil on panel National Museum, Warsaw |
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| attributed to Reyer Jacobsz van Blommendael Shepherd and Sleeping Shepherdess (scene from Granida, a pastoral play by Pieter Cornelisz Hooft) ca. 1650-60 oil on canvas Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Adriaen van Diest Battle of La Hogue ca. 1692 oil on canvas National Maritime Museum, Greenwich |
Burning Oak, November
Yesterday, the sky in mute
horizontal swaths, air
almost too thick to breathe.
We found the stump of an old oak, man-
horizontal swaths, air
almost too thick to breathe.
We found the stump of an old oak, man-
sized, burning without flame
at the edge of a clearing – splintered wood
raw, bulldozed roots exposed –
even the black ants fled
in the stink of old grief
made public and final, old hopes exposed –
past tense! – now headless leafless a stump
knocked half out of the earth
and the soul just blue smoke vague
and slow-spreading rising without grace
into an indifferent sky no one will paint,
or photograph, or see –
except us: yesterday.
– Joyce Carol Oates (1986)