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| Lorenzo Lotto Portrait of a Young Man 1509-1510 oil on panel Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence |
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| Andrea della Robbia Virgin and Child with Cherubim ca. 1485 glazed terracotta National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Elisabetta Sirani Galatea 1664 oil on canvas Museo Civico di Modena |
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| Willem van Mieris Miniature Portrait of Magdalena de la Court 1688 oil on panel Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden |
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| Tommaso Amantini Ecce Homo 1671 terracotta relief Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Jacopo Ligozzi Allegory of Fortune ca. 1580-1600 oil on panel Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence |
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| Wilhelm Hensel after Raphael Conestabile Madonna ca. 1840 oil on panel Bildgalerie von Sanssouci, Potsdam |
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| Domenico Beccafumi Mystic Marriage of St Catherine ca. 1533-35 oil on panel Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Rome |
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| Carlo Crivelli St Clare and St Bernardino ca. 1485-90 tempera on panel Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts |
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| Giacomo Cavedone The Taking of Christ ca. 1620-30 oil on canvas Gallerie Estense, Modena |
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| Giovanni Francesco Bembo St Lawrence enthroned with St George and St John the Baptist ca. 1530 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Michelangelo Buonarroti The Doni Tondo (Holy Family) 1505-1506 tempera on panel Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence |
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| Domenico Ghirlandaio Adoration of the Magi 1487 tempera on panel Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence |
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| Niccolò Pisano Adoration of the Magi ca. 1515-20 tempera on panel Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara |
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| Sèvres Manufactory Portrait of Napoleon 1811 painted porcelain tile Palazzo Pitti, Florence |
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| Theo van Doesburg Contra Compositie VII 1924 oil on canvas Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden |
from Fabergé's Egg
The old riddle of the chicken and the egg
is answered thus: in the Belle Epoque
of the imagination, the egg came first, containing,
is answered thus: in the Belle Epoque
of the imagination, the egg came first, containing,
as it does, both history and uncertainty, my excesses
inducing unrest among those too hungry to see
the bitter joke of an egg one cannot eat.
Oblique oddity, an egg is the most beautiful of all
Oblique oddity, an egg is the most beautiful of all
beautiful forms, a box without corners
in which anything can be contained, anything
in which anything can be contained, anything
except Time, that old jeweler who laughed
when he set me ticking.
when he set me ticking.
– Elizabeth Spires (1988)