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| Robert Vance Portrait of miner George Tom, San Francisco 1855 hand-colored daguerreotype National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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| Arturo Terry Portrait of a Chilean Woman ca. 1854 hand-colored daguerreotype National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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| G. Redfern Portrait of Young Woman ca. 1880 hand-colored albumen silver print (carte de visite) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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| G. Redfern Portrait of Young Woman ca. 1880 hand-colored albumen silver print (carte de visite) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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| Oskar Nerlinger The Grater ca. 1928 hand-colored gelatin silver print (photogram) Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Ellen Gallagher Abu Simbel 2005-2006 hand-colored photogravure, etching, aquatint and drypoint Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Nathaniel Jaquith Mother and Child ca. 1860 hand-colored daguerreotype National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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| Antoine Claudet Two Sisters ca. 1847 hand-colored daguerreotype National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
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| Gilbert and George Beard Review 2016 hand-colored photomontage Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Gilbert and George Waking 1984 hand-colored photomontage Guggenheim Museum, New York |
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| Gilbert and George Dream 1984 hand-colored photomontage Guggenheim Museum, New York |
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| Anonymous Photographer Crimean War Soldier ca. 1855 hand-colored ambrotype Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
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| Anonymous Photographer Four Young Siblings ca. 1855 hand-colored daguerreotype Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
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| Antoine Claudet Mother and Daughter ca. 1855 hand-colored daguerreotype (stereograph) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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| Antoine Claudet Two Brothers ca. 1855 hand-colored daguerreotype (stereograph) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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| Susanna Briselli Still Life ca. 1985 hand-colored gelatin silver print Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami |
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| Allan Chasanoff 839-10.F+Bg 2-4 1983 hand-colored C-print Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
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| Thomas Bock Two Boys ca. 1848-50 hand-colored daguerreotype National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
The Peacock
I speak to the unbeautiful of this bird
That, celestially bored,
On feet too little under willows trails
Too much of itself, like Proust, a long brocade
Along, not seen but felt; that's never spared,
Most mortal of its trials,
Lifting this burden up in pride.
The spreading tail is pallid seen from the back
But it's worthwhile to look
At what strenuous midribs make the plumage stretch:
Then, while it teeters in the light wind, ah
It turns, black, green and gold, that zodiac
Of eyes – not these so much
As idiot mouths repeating: I.
Consider other birds: the murderous swan
And dodo now undone,
The appalling dove, hens' petulant sisterhood;
And then the peacock that no cry alarms,
Tense with idlesse, as though already on
A terrace in boxwood
Or graven in a coat of arms.
In all these there's the common wound of nature
No natural hand can suture,
A lessening – whether by want of shape they fail,
Of song, or will to live, or something else.
How comforting to think blest any creature
This short of beautiful!
But some have known such comfort false.
A beatitude of trees which shall inherit
Whoever's poor in spirit
Receives the peacock in their cumbersome shade.
Some who have perfect beauty shall not grieve,
As I, for diminution; they know merit
In body, word and deed,
Lone angels round each human grave.
– James Merrill (1951)