James Earl Portrait of Frances Hortin 1792 oil on canvas Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee |
Rachel Echenberg Portrait de Famille avec Divan 2014 inkjet print Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec |
Sydenham Edwards Embothrium speciosissimum (Waratah) 1808 hand-colored engraving National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Nicole Eisenman Sketch for a Fountain 2017 bronze Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas |
Willard Frederic Elms Art Institute by the Elevated Lines ca. 1924 lithograph (poster) Art Institute of Chicago |
Robert Engels Le Passant 1898 lithograph (illustration to poem by Edmond Pilon) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Prosper d'Epinay Georges d'Epinay, fils de l'artiste ca. 1884 painted terracotta Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
Erté (Romain de Tirtoff) Number Nine 1968 lithograph Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane |
Hans Eworth Portrait of Mary Neville, Lady Dacre ca. 1555-58 oil on panel National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
attributed to Jan van Eyck Portrait of a Monk ca. 1420 oil on panel (formerly owned by the painter Ingres) Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban |
Conrad Faber von Creuznach Portrait of Heinrich vom Rhein zum Mohren ca. 1525-30 oil on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Anonymous Artist The Messel Mica Fan ca. 1665-1700 painted mica panels mounted on ivory sticks Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
Henri Fantin-Latour Still Life with Peaches and Grapes 1873 oil on canvas Centraal Museum, Utrecht |
Dixon Farley Untitled 1997 oil on canvas San Jose Museum of Art, California |
Julian Faulhaber Ceiling 2006 C-print Princeton University Art Museum |
Johann Christian Fiedler Portrait of painter Johann Alexander Thiele ca. 1730 oil on canvas Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel |
Wise Old Men
In our society, old men are not considered to be wise, but, rather, odd eccentric, opinionated, sloppy, foolish, forgetful, stubborn, weak, confused, clumsy, etc. This old man standing in front of me in line, that old man over there trying to open the door – what a bother, get out of our way, with your slow shuffling feet and your hesitation and your uncertainty, we say. Can't you get all the way across the street before the light changes? In another society, it is different. He is an old man, they say, ask him.
from The People in My Dreams
I am trying to help an Englishman cross a small lake. He needs to reach a certain street on the other side. The Englishman is fussy and old, and clings to me in a way that bothers me. I leave him for a moment standing on the pier and walk up a gangplank into a large boat. Its gangways are full of mad and senile old people. I want to see if the old man might cross the lake in this large boat.
But my dream ends abruptly there, and so the old man is left standing on the pier, alone, perhaps even more agitated and frightened, waiting for me to come back.
– Lydia Davis, from Our Stranger: Stories (2023)