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| William and Frederick Langenheim Portrait of Sisters ca. 1845 daguerreotype Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Giuseppe Cades Princes Camillo and Francesco Borghese 1778 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| David Wilkie Daughters of Sir Walter Scott 1817 oil on panel (sketch) Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Louis-Léopold Boilly Furtive Clown and Sleeping Woman ca. 1820 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Laura Knight Dressing Room I 1923 etching and aquatint Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Henry Lamb Phantasy 1912 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Giovanni Angelo Canini Allegorical Composition ca. 1650 drawing Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
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| Nicolas Mignard Venus and Adonis ca. 1650 oil on canvas Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Jusepe de Ribera A Potentate accompanied by Halberd-Bearer ca. 1625-30 drawing Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Andrea Soldi Portrait of Mother and Child ca. 1740 oil on canvas Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| David Teniers the Younger Abraham's Sacrifice 1653 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Thomas Eakins Wrestlers ca. 1899 oil on canvas (sketch) Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg Study for Israelites bearing Burdens ca. 1812-13 drawing Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
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| Frans Floris Portrait of Two Children 1563 oil on panel Gemäldegalerie, Dresden |
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| Gaetano Gandolfi Heads of Two Bishops ca. 1780 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Michel Garnier The Poorly-Defended Rose 1789 oil on canvas Minneapolis Institute of Art |
Dying
Nothing to be said about it, and everything –
The change of changes, closer or further away:
The Golden Retriever next door, Gussie, is dead,
Like Sandy, the Cocker Spaniel from three doors down
Who died when I was small; and every day
Things that were in my memory fade and die.
Phrases die out: first, everyone forgets
What doornails are; then after certain decades
As a dead metaphor, "dead as a doornail" flickers
And fades away. But someone I know is dying –
And though one might say glibly, "everyone is,"
The different pace makes the difference absolute.
The tiny invisible spores in the air we breathe,
That settle harmlessly on our drinking water
And on our skin, happen to come together
With certain conditions on the forest floor,
Or even a shady corner of the lawn –
And overnight the fleshy, pale stalks gather,
The colorless growth without a leaf or flower;
And around the stalks, the summer grass keeps growing
With steady pressure, like the insistent whiskers
That grow between shaves on a face, the nails
Growing and dying from the toes and fingers
At their own humble pace, oblivious
As the nerveless moths, that live their night or two –
Though like a moth a bright soul keeps on beating,
Bored and impatient in the monster's mouth.
– Robert Pinsky (1980)