Friday, November 14, 2025

Some Symmetry

James S. Baillie
The Life & Age of Woman
1848
hand-colored lithograph
National Museum of American History, Washington DC


James S. Baillie
The Life & Age of Man
1848
hand-colored lithograph
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Félix Bonfils
Damascus Gate, Jerusalem
before 1876
albumen silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Anonymous Photographer
James Wells Champney and Francis Davis Millet
bowing to the Camera

1876
tintype
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Giacomo Brogi
On the Leads of the Duomo, Milan
before 1881
albumen silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Anonymous Photographer
Orchard, Santa Ysabel Hot Springs, California
ca. 1890
hand-colored lantern slide
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous Persian Printmaker
Camel Battle
ca. 1890
hand-colored woodcut
National Museum of Asian Art, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Oldacres, Old Westbury, New York
ca. 1915
hand-colored lantern slide
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

Boucheron (Paris)
Brooch in Bow Shape
1925
jade, onyx, coral, lapis lazuli, diamonds and platinum
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Georges Barbier
Falbalas & Fanfreluches
1926
hand-colored engraving (almanac cover)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Photographer
Château Vaux-le-Vicomte
with Ladies of the American Garden Club entering

1936
hand-colored lantern slide
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

Ghitta Caiserman
Untitled (Children in Costume)
ca. 1960
oil on panel
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Robert Bordeau
Ontario, Canada
1980
gelatin silver print
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

Emery Blagdon
Untitled (Individual Element from the Healing Machine)
before 1986
oil on board
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Roger Brown
Los Angeles
1993
oil on canvas
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Frédéric Brenner
Billings, Montana
1994
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Wayne Barrar
Large Crib Room (Deep Mine), Mount Isa
2005
pigment print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

from Sejanus his Fall

Old Men not staid with Age, Virgins with shame, 
Late Wives with losse of Husbands, Mothers of Children,
Loosing all griefe in joy of his sad fall,
Runne quite transported with their cruelty:
These digging out his eyes, those with his braine,
Sprinkling themselves, their houses, and their friends:
Others are met, have ravish'd thence an arme,
And deale small pieces of the flesh for Favors:
These with a thigh; this hath cut off his hands;
And this his feete; he his heart; there wants
Nothing but roome for wrath, and place for hatred.
What cannot oft be done, is now o'erdone.
The whole, and All of what was great Sejanus,
And next to Caesar did possesse the world,
Now torne, and scatterd, as he needs no grave,
Each little dust covers a little part:
So lies he no where, and yet often buried.

– Claudian (AD 370-404), translated by Ben Jonson (1605)

Thursday, November 13, 2025

Ornamental

Adrien Ysenbrandt
Member of the Hillensberger Family
(donor portrait from altarpiece)
1513
oil on panel
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami


Dirk Jacobsz Vellert
Figure with Fish
1522
etching and engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau the Elder
Château de Vallery - inner corner of courtyard
ca. 1570
ink and watercolor on vellum
British Museum

Anthony van Dyck after Titian
Study of Leg
(from van Dyck's Italian sketchbook)
ca. 1621-27
drawing
British Museum

Raffaello Vanni
Youth with Clasped Hands
ca. 1640
drawing
British Museum

Willem Drost
Sleeping Boy
ca. 1655
drawing
British Museum

Gaetano Vascellini after Benvenuto Cellini
Perseus and Andromeda
(after a bronze relief)
1781
engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

John Downman
Study of Mrs Pearson's Sister for the Group
1787
drawing
British Museum

Johann Friedrich August Tischbein
Family Portrait
ca. 1795-1800
oil on canvas
(before the French Revolution upper-class women
were never shown nursing in European pictures)
Museumslandschaft, Hessen Kassel

Henry Tonks
Head of Young Woman
ca. 1905
drawing
British Museum

Hilda Travers
Windy Day
ca. 1920-25
color linocut
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Raoul Dufy
The Kessler Family on Horseback
1932
oil on canvas
Tate Modern, London

Rudolf Bauer
The Holy One (Red Point)
1936
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Ilya Bolotowsky
Blue Rectangles
1953
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Emerson Woelffer
Figure
1970
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Jack Youngerman
Delfina
ca. 1975
screenprint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Henryk Tomaszewski
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité - dans la Pure Biosphère
1989
lithograph
(poster for the Bicentennial of the French Revolution)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Sabrina's Song, from the Masque presented at Ludlow Castle

By the rushy-fringèd bank,
Where grows the willow and the osier dank,
        My sliding chariot stays,
Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen
Of turkis blue, and emerald green
        That in the channel strays,
Whilst from off the waters fleet
Thus I set my printless feet
O'er the cowslip's velvet head,
    That bends not as I tread,
Gentle swain at thy request
        I am here.

– John Milton (published 1637)

Olden-Days Young - II

Diego Velázquez
Portrait of Infanta Margarita Teresa,
later Holy Roman Empress

1654
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Pierfrancesco Cittadini
Portrait of a Girl
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

François de Troy
Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, age 12
(the Old Pretender)
1700
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum Hannover

Jean-Baptiste Pigalle
Child with Birdcage and Dead Bird
1748-49
limestone statue
Bode Museum, Berlin

Jean-Baptiste Greuze
The Lazy Boy
1755
oil on canvas
Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Johann-Andreas Herrlein
Carl Franz and Maria Johanna von Stein zum Altenstein
1769
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Jacques-Louis David
Portrait of a Boy
1786
oil on canvas
Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence

Anonymous French Artist
Portrait of a Boy
1811
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Anonymous Photographer
Portrait of a Child
ca. 1850-60
hand-colored salted paper print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Franz Eybl
Girl Reading
1850
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Anonymous German Artist
Children of the Buderus Family at Christmas
1866
oil on canvas
Historisches Museum, Frankfurt

Henri Fantin-Latour
Portrait of Marie Yolande de Fitz-James
1867
oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Auguste Rodin
Alsatian Girl
ca. 1871-78
marble
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Anton Romako
Girl picking an Apple
ca. 1882
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Berthe Morisot
Children with a Basin
1886
oil on canvas
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Fritz von Uhde
Nursery
1889
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Chorus of Furies:  We are many, but we will speak briefly; and you [to Orestes] will answer us in your turn, point by point.  First of all, say whether you are the killer of your mother. 

Orestes:  I did kill her; there can be no denying that. 

Chorus:  That is already one of the three falls we need.

Orestes:  You're boasting like that over me when I'm not yet on the floor!

Chorus:  But still, you next have to say how you killed her. 

Orestes:  I do say it: sword in hand, by cutting her throat.

Chorus:  And by whose persuasion did you do it, and on whose advice?

Orestes:  The oracular words of the god here; he is my witness.

Chorus:  The prophet god instructed you to kill your mother?

Orestes:  And up to this point I have no fault to find with the outcome.

Chorus:  Well, if the verdict nets you, you'll soon say something different!

Orestes:  I have confidence in him, and my father will send aid from his tomb.

Chorus:  Yes, trust in the dead, after killing your mother!

Orestes:  I did so because she had the contagion of a double pollution.

Chorus:  How so?  Explain your meaning to the judges.

Orestes:  She killed her husband and my father. 

Chorus:  So what?  You're alive; her murder has freed her from guilt.

Orestes:  But why didn't you hound her into flight while she lived? 

Chorus:  She wasn't of the same blood as the man she killed.

Orestes:  And I am blood-kin to my mother? 

Chorus:  How else did she nourish you, you filthy murderer, beneath her girdle?* Do you disavow your mother's blood, the nearest and dearest to your own? 

– Aeschylus, from Eumenides (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*It was believed that the embryo received nourishment through blood-vessels in the umbilical cord, whose origin was in the mother's heart or liver.