Frankfurt

Gerard David
Head Studies
ca. 1497-98
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Pietro Perugino
St Martin dividing his Cloak with the Beggar
ca. 1500
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Timoteo Viti
Figure leaning on Staff
ca. 1504
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Hans Burgkmair the Elder
Death of the Virgin
1520
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Jan Swart van Groningen
Traveling Women meeting on the Road
before 1553
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Hans Brosamer
Drapery Study
before 1554
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Francesco Salviati
Eros with Torch
before 1563
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Vincenzo Danti
Three Figures
before 1576
drawing
(collection mount of Pierre-Jean Mariette)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Jacques de Gheyn II
The Phlegmatic - Kingdom of Neptune
(series, The Four Temperaments)
ca. 1595
drawing (print study)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Ludovico Carracci
Youth with Ruff
before 1619
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Bartholomeus Breenbergh 
Rock Arches, Tivoli
ca. 1626-29
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Pietro da Cortona (Pietro Berrettini)
Abduction of Sabine Women
before 1669
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Abraham van Diepenbeeck
Design for Neptune Fountain
before 1675
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Johann Melchior Roos
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1683
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Jean-Baptiste Corneille
The Widow's Mite
before 1695
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Charles Parrocel
Domestic Scene with Three Women and a Child
ca. 1730
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Georg Melchior Kraus
Group of Men in Discussion
ca. 1771-72
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

    But my soul what aileth thee to be thus backward and astonished at the remembrance of death, sith it doth not reach thee more than darkness doth those far-shining lamps above?   Rouse thyself for shame; why shouldst thou fear to be without a body, sith thy Maker and the spiritual and supercelestial inhabitants have no bodies?  Hast thou ever seen any prisoner who, when the jail gates were broken up and he enfranchised and let loose, would rather plain and sit still on his fetters than seek his freedom?  Or any mariner who, in the midst of storms arriving near the shore, would launch forth again unto the main rather than strike sail and joyfully enter the leas of a safe harbour?  If thou rightly know thyself, thou hast but small cause of anguish; for if there be any resemblance of that which is infinite in what is finite (which yet by an infinite imperfection is from it distant) if thou be not an image thou art a shadow of that unsearchable Trinity in thy three essential powers, Understanding, Will, Memory; which, though three, are in thee but one, and abiding one, are distinctly three.  But in nothing more comest thou near that sovereign Good than by thy perpetuity, which who strive to improve by that same do it prove: like those that by arguing themselves to be without all reason, by the very arguing show how they have some.  For how can what is wholly mortal more think upon, consider, or know that which is immortal, than the eye can know sounds or the ear discern of colours?  If none had eyes, who would ever dispute of light or shadow?  And if all were deaf, who would descant of music?  To thee nothing in this visible world is comparable: thou art so wonderful a beauty, and so beautiful a wonder, that if but once thou couldst be gazed upon by bodily eyes, every heart would be inflamed with thy love, and ravished from all servile baseness and earthly desires.

– William Drummond of Hawthornden, from A Cypress Grove (London: Hawthornden Press, 1919, reprinting the original edition of 1623)