Portraits of Unknowns

Roman Empire
Funerary Portrait of a Matron
AD 10
marble
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Roman Egypt
Funerary Mask of a Young Man
1st-3rd century AD
painted stucco
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee

Anonymous Venetian Sculptor
Head of a Woman
ca. 1450
Istrian stone
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Anonymous German Painter
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1520-25
oil on panel
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Anonymous Spanish Painter
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1550-55
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Anonymous Italian Painter
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1550-60
oil on canvas
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Anonymous Spanish Sculptor
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1560-70
painted walnut
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich

Anonymous Italian Painter
Portrait of a Boy with a Book
ca. 1560-70
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Anonymous Emilian Sculptor
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1550-1600
lead medallion
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous English Painter
Portrait of a Man
1581
oil on panel
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Anonymous European Painter
Portrait of a Youth
ca. 1628
oil on canvas
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

Anonymous European Painter
Portrait of a Woman
1693
oil on canvas
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

Anonymous European Artist
Portrait of a Youth
17th century
drawing
(after a painting by Anthony van Dyck)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous English Painter
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1700
oil on canvas
Newport Mansions Preservation Society

Anonymous German Painter
Portrait of a Man
1818
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous European Forger
Portrait of a Woman
19th century
painted plaster
(purchased by Mrs. Gardner as a Renaissance work)
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Matins

Forgive me if I say I love you: the powerful

are always lied to since the weak are always

driven by panic. I cannot love

what I can't conceive, and you disclose 

virtually nothing: are you like the hawthorn tree,

always the same thing in the same place,

or are you more the foxglove, inconsistent, first springing up

a pink spike on the slope behind the daisies,

and the next year, purple in the rose garden? You must see

it is useless to us, this silence that promotes belief

you must be all things, the foxglove and the hawthorn tree,

the vulnerable rose and tough daisy – we are left to think

you couldn't possibly exist. Is this

what you mean us to think, does this explain

the silence of the morning,

the crickets not yet rubbing their wings, the cats

not fighting in the yard?

– Louise Glück (1992)

Tree Portraits - Tight

Denys van Alsloot (landscape) and Hendrick de Clerck (figures)
Landscape with Cephalus and Procris
1608
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Roelant Savery
Mountain Landscape with Fruit-Seller
1609
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Paulus Potter 
Departure for the Hunt
1652
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jacob Philipp Hackert
Italian River Landscape
1776
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Anonymous French Artist
Hillside Landscape with a Passing Army
18th century
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Jean-Michel Grobon
Study of a Tree
1810
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Castle on a River
1820
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Heinrich Reinhold
Tree in the Campagna
ca. 1821-24
oil on paper
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Carl Rottmann
Ammersee
1823
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Grove of Trees in Dyrehaven
1825
oil on canvas
Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen

Jean-Victor Bertin
Deer at the Edge of a Wood
1835
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Morgan Library, New York

Alexandre Calame
Sycamores
1854
oil on canvas
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
Early Spring in the Vienna Woods
1864
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Charles Hoguet
Shepherds resting under a Tree
1868
oil on canvas
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Ferdinand Bernhard Hoppe
Old Linden Trees
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Victoria Crowe
Large Tree Group
1975
oil on board
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Tamburlaine [to Cosroe]: 

The thirst of raigne and sweetnes of a crown,
That causde the eldest sonne of heavenly Ops,
To thrust his doting father from his chaire,
And place himselfe in the Emperiall heaven,
Moov'd me to manage armes against thy state.
What better president than mightie Jove?
Nature that fram'd us of foure Elements,
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspyring minds:
Our soules, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous Architecture of the world:

And measure every wandring plannets course:
Still climing after knowledge infinite,
And alwaies mooving as the restles Spheares,
Wils us to weare our selves and never rest,
Untill we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect blisse and sole felicitie
The sweet fruition of an earthly crowne.

– Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine, The First Part, act II, scene vii (1590)

Unknown Painters (Italy)

Anonymous Artist
A Group Portrait
ca. 1755
oil on canvas
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Anonymous Artist
Portico with a Lantern
ca. 1741-45
oil on canvas
(an imitation of Canaletto)
Art Institute of Chicago

Anonymous Artist
Miniature Battle Scene
ca. 1650-1700
oil on lapis lazuli
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich

Anonymous Artist
Martyrdom of St Ignatius of Antioch
ca. 1635-45
oil on canvas
(after a painting by Francesco Fracanzano)
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Anonymous Artist
Cephalus and Aurora
17th century
oil on panel
(after a painting by Agostino Carracci)
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Anonymous Artist
Christ the Redeemer
ca. 1600-1625
oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Anonymous Artist
Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1575-80
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Anonymous Artist
Portrait of a Young Man
16th century
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Anonymous Artist
Virgin and Child
ca. 1520
oil on canvas, mounted on panel
Portland Art Museum, Oregon

Anonymous Artist
Madonna del Suffragio
ca. 1520
tempera on panel
Allen Memorial Art Museum,
Oberlin College, Ohio

Anonymous Artist
Virgin and Child with young St John the Baptist
ca. 1500-1525
tempera on panel
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Anonymous Artist
Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1500
oil on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous Artist
Initial A with Two Marys at the Empty Tomb
ca. 1495-1505
tempera on vellum
(cutting from illuminated manuscript)
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Anonymous Artist
Initial D with Martyrdom of St Peter
15th century
tempera and gold on vellum
(cutting from illuminated manuscript)
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Anonymous Artist
Pietà
ca. 1470-80
tempera on panel
(after a painting by Cosmè Tura)
Art Institute of Chicago

Anonymous Artist
Virgin and Child Enthroned
ca. 1400-1450
tempera on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama

Spring Snow

Look at the night sky:

I have two selves, two kinds of power.

I am here with you, at the window, 

watching you react. Yesterday

the moon rose over moist earth in the lower garden.

Now the earth glitters like the moon,

like dead matter crusted with light.

You can close your eyes now:

I have heard your cries, and cries before yours,

and the demand behind them.

I have shown you what you want:

not belief, but capitulation

to authority, which depends on violence. 

– Louise Glück (1992)

Showing, Keeping, Making

Anonymous German Painter
Gallery in the Old Museum
1896
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous German Photographer
Italian Renaissance Gallery, Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin
ca. 1925-35
gelatin silver print
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Bénigne Gagneraux
Meeting of King Gustav III of Sweden and Pope Pius VI in the Pio-Clementine Museum, Rome
1786
oil on canvas
Národní Galerie, Prague

Adrienne Marie Louise Grandpierre-Deverzy
Interior of the Studio of Abel de Pujol
1822
oil on canvas
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Norbert Grund
Art Gallery
ca. 1740
oil on canvas
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Alois Hänisch
Map Room at the Albertina, Vienna
1916
oil on canvas
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Nora Heysen
The Studio
1931
woodcut
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Candida Höfer
Villa Hügel, Essen II
2009
C-print
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Georg Friedrich Kersting
Caspar David Friedrich in his Studio
1811
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Johannes Laurentius
Gallery View - Deities from Greek Sanctuaries
2011
digital photograph
Altes Museum, Berlin

Sigrid Lehrbäck
Sculpture Gallery - Ateneum, Helsinki
ca. 1898-1905
oil on canvas
Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki

Marcel-Eugène Louveau-Rouveyre
Storage at Musée de Cluny, Paris
ca. 1910
watercolor
Morgan Library, New York

Jean-André Rixens
Opening Day at the Palais des Champs-Élysées
1890
oil on canvas
National Gallery, Athens

Hubert Robert
Young Artist drawing in Ruins of Roman Sculpture Gallery
ca. 1775
drawing
National Gallery, Athens

Karel Slabbaert
Painting Studio of St Luke
ca. 1645-50
oil on panel
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Fritz Werner
The Librarian
ca. 1873
oil on panel
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Tamburlaine [to Zenocrate]:

Disdains Zenocrate to live with me?
Or you my Lordes to be my followers?
Thinke you I way this treasure more than you?
Not all the Gold in Indias welthy armes,
Shall buy the meanest souldier in my traine.
Zenocrate, lovelier than the Love of Jove,
Brighter than is the silver Rhodope,
Fairer than whitest snow on Scythian hils,
Thy person is more woorth to Tamburlaine,
Than the possession of the Persean Crowne,
Which gratious starres have promist at my birth.
A hundreth Tartars shall attend on thee,
Mounted on Steeds, swifter than Pegasus.
Thy Garments shall be made of Medean silke,
Enchast with precious juelles of mine owne:
More rich and valurous than Zenocrates.
With milke-white Hartes upon an Ivorie sled,
Thou shalt be drawen amidst the frosen Pooles,
And scale the ysie mountaines lofty tops:
Which with thy beautie will be soone resolv'd.

– Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine, The First Part, act I, scene ii (1590)