-The-Visitation-c1310-20-painted-and-gilded-walnut-Metropolitan-Museum-of-Art-New-York.jpg) |
| Master Heinrich of Constance The Visitation ca. 1310-20 painted and gilded walnut Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Master of the Kremsmünster Diptych Virgin and Child 14th century ivory British Museum |
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| Mino da Fiesole Virgin Annunciate ca. 1455-60 marble National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Master Pertoldus Triptych with Scenes from the Passion 1494 silver (partly gilt & partly enamelled), mother of pearl, bone Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Antonio Minello Mythological Scene ca. 1525 marble relief Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich |
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| Ottavio Miseroni Bowl ca. 1600 carved agate (enameled-gold mount on rim added in 19th century, imitating early mounts) British Museum |
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| Master of the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian Hercules and Achelous as Bull ca. 1670 ivory relief Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Giuseppe Mazza Bust of Adonis 1692 marble Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna |
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| Master of the Agrafe Forgeries Diptych with Magi and Crucifixion 18th-19th century ivory relief (forgery purchased by the Museum in 1856) British Museum |
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| Master of the Agrafe Forgeries Group of Apostles 18th-19th century ivory relief (forgery purchased by the Museum in 1885) British Museum |
-Holy-Family-18th-19th-century-ivory-relief-(purchased-by-the-Museum-in-1856)-British-Museum.jpg) |
| Master of the Agrafe Forgeries Holy Family 18th-19th century ivory relief (forgery purchased by the Museum in 1856) British Museum |
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| Amedeo Modigliani Head 1911-12 stone Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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| Paul Manship Portrait Study of John Barrymore ca. 1918 plaster Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Barry MacDonald Bottiglia Barrocco 1994 rosewood, ebony and brass Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Juan Muñoz Shadow and Mouth 1996 cast polyester resin figures and wooden furniture Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao |
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| David Nash Pyramid, Sphere, Cube 1997-98 installation (charcoal drawings on canvas with charred-oak sculptures) Tate Modern, London |
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| Dwight Marica Space Object 1999 metal, polystyrene, wax and cable Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
His body is but a mass of discording humours, composed and elemented by the conspiring influences of superior lights, which, though agreeing for a trace of time, yet can never be made uniform and kept in a just proportion. To what sickness is it subject unto, beyond those of the other sensible creatures! no part of it being which is not particularly infected and afflicted by some one; nay, every part with many, yea, so many that the masters of that art can scarce number or name them. So that the life of divers of the meanest creatures of nature hath with great reason by the most wise been preferred to the natural life of man; and we should rather wonder how so fragile a matter should so long endure, than how so soon dissolve and decay.
Are the actions of the most part of men much differing from the exercise of the spider, that pitcheth toils and is tapist to prey on the smaller creatures, and for the weaving of a scornful web eviserateth itself many days; which when with much industry finished, a little puff of wind carrieth away both the work and the worker? Or are they not like the plays of children, or (to hold them at their highest rate) as is a May-game, a masque, or what is more earnest, some study at chess? Every day we rise and lie down, apparel our bodies and disapparel them, make them sepulchres of dead creatures, weary them and refresh them; which is a circle of idle travails and labours, like Penelope's task, unprofitably renewed. Some time we are in a chase after a fading beauty; now we seek to enlarge our bounds, increase our treasure, living poorly, to purchase what we must leave to those we shall never see, or haply, to a fool or a prodigal heir. Raised with the wind of ambition, we court that idle name of honour, not considering how they mounted aloft in the highest ascendant of earthly glory are but tortured ghosts, wandering with golden fetters in glistening prisons, having fear and danger their unseparable executioners in the midst of multitudes rather guarded than regarded. They whom opaque imaginations and inward thoughtfulness have made weary of the world's eye, though they have withdrawn themselves from the course of vulgar affairs by vain contemplation, curious searches, think their life away, are more disquieted and live worse than others, their wit being too sharp, to give them a true taste of present infelicities and to aggravate their woes; while they of a more shallow and blunt conceit have want of knowledge and ignorance of themselves for a remedy and antidote against all the grievances and encumbrances of life.
– William Drummond of Hawthornden, from A Cypress Grove (London: Hawthornden Press, 1919, reprinting the original edition of 1623)