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| Anonymous Italian Artist Head of the Giustiniani Apollo 19th century plaster Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
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| John Flaxman Roman Tragic Mask and Male Head (Italian Sketchbook) 1787 drawing Yale Center for British Art |
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| John Flaxman Antique Head with Helmet ca. 1790 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Anne Seymour Damer Bust of Niobe's Daughter, after the Antique 1780 terracotta Yale Center for British Art |
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| Leendert van der Cooghen Classical Head 1654 drawing Harvard Art Museums |
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| Giovanni Battista Cipriani Study of Antique Head ca. 1760 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Carlo and Filippo Albacini Head of Julia of Emesa ca. 1795 plaster Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Carlo and Filippo Albacini Head of Marcus Aurelius ca. 1795 plaster Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Carlo and Filippo Albacini Head of Trajan ca. 1795 plaster Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| John Samuel Agar Classical Head in Marble 1809 engraving Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Walter Pach Scopasian Head 1922 etching Cleveland Museum of Art |
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| Augustin Pajou Lion's Head from the Capitoline Staircase, Rome ca. 1752-56 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Bernard Picart Grotesque Head from an Antique Gem ca. 1722 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Peter Paul Rubens Antique Head of Nero Caesar Augustus ca. 1638 drawing Harvard Art Museums |
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| William Theed Bust of Aesculapius 1856 colossal marble copy of antique sculpture (commissioned by Prince Albert) Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| William Theed Bust of Periander 1855 marble copy of antique original in the British Museum (purchased by Queen Victoria) Royal Collection, Great Britain |
– excerpt from a letter –
I agree that Job endlessly discusses morals but there is nothing moral about the Book of Job. In fact it is shockingly amoral.
God has a wager with Satan that Job will not lose faith, however much he is afflicted. Job never knows about this wager, neither do his friends. But the reader knows. Satan finally makes the explicit challenge (2.5):
But put forth thy hand
now, and touch his bone and
his flesh, and he will
curse thee to thy face.
And God says, Go ahead ('Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.')
Consequently Job, having lost his sons and his goods, is now covered with sores. He is visited by his bureaucratic friends who tell him he must have deserved it. The result is that Job has a sort of nervous breakdown. He demands an explanation and he never gets it.
Do you know that verse of Kipling's?
The toad beneath the harrow knows,
Exactly where each tooth-point goes;
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.
I think this expresses Job's plight. The boils are personal, they loosen his tongue, they set him off. He doesn't reproach God in so many words, but he does by implication."
– Muriel Spark, from The Only Problem (1984)