Friday, November 25, 2022

Painted Allegory / Painted Personification

Filippino Lippi
Allegory of Music
(the Muse Erato)
ca. 1500
tempera and oil on panel
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Bernardino Luini
Figure of Silence
ca. 1521-23
detached fresco (fragment)
Musée du Louvre

Michele Tosini after Michelangelo
Personification of Night
ca. 1555-65
oil on panel
Galleria Colonna, Rome

Francesco Morandini (il Poppi)
Charity
ca. 1575-80
oil on canvas
Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze

Paolo Fiammingo
Triumph of the Virtues over the Vices
1592
oil on canvas
private collection

Francesco Rustici (il Rustichino)
Allegory of Painting and Architecture
before 1626
oil on canvas
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Peter Paul Rubens
Peace and War
(Minerva protecting Peace from Mars)
ca. 1629-30
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

Jacob Van Loo
Allegory of Transience with Venus and Cupid
1654
oil on panel
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky

Joseph Werner the Younger
Louis XIV as Apollo
driving the Chariot of the Sun

ca. 1680
gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Charles Boit after Carlo Cignani
Charity
ca. 1690
enamel miniature
Musée du Louvre

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Personification of Autumn
ca. 1716
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Johann Heinrich von Hurter
Allegory of Youth rejecting Pleasure
to follow Virtue

1775
enamel miniature
Musée du Louvre

Pompeo Batoni
Allegory of Peace and War (detail)
1776
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Andrea Appiani the Younger
Allegory of Venice aspiring to join a newly-united Italy
before 1865
oil on canvas
Museo del Risorgimento, Milan


Ettore Tito
Love and Fate
ca. 1909
oil on canvas
private collection

Valentine to RR written extempore, Feb. 14 1802

Custom, whose laws we all allow,
And bow before his shrine,
Has so ordained, my friend, that you
Are now my Valentine.

Ah, could my humble Muse aspire
To catch the flame divine!
These are the gifts that I'd require
For thee, my Valentine!

May virtue o'er thy steps preside
And in thy conduct shine;
May truth and wisdom ever guide
And guard my Valentine.

May piety, seraphic maid,
Her influence divine
Shed on thy head, and ever lead,
And bless my Valentine.

Life's dangerous paths safe may'st thou tread,
Shielded by Grace divine;
And when these artless lines are read,
Think on my Valentine!

– Charlotte Richardson