Brevity

Lucas Cranach the Elder
Portrait of Christiane von Eulenau
1534
oil on panel
Staatsgalerie in der Neuen Residenz, Bamberg

Bartholomäus Bruyn the Elder
Portrait of Doctor Ludwig Falckenberch
ca. 1535
gouache and oil paint on paper
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio after Girolamo dai Libri
Virgin and Child with St Anne, St Roch and St Sebastian
ca. 1520-40
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Nicolaes de Bruyn
Abigail before David
1608
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Michel Corneille the Elder
St Paul and St Barnabus denying the Gods of Lystra
1644
oil on canvas
(grisaille sketch for May painting at Notre Dame)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Pietro da Cortona (Pietro Berrettini)
Achilles receiving Weapons from Thetis
before 1669
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Michel Corneille the Younger
Studies for the Figure of Martha
ca. 1690
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Louis-Léopold Boilly
Young Woman holding Child
ca. 1810
pastel on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Honoré Daumier
The Lover of Oysters
1836
lithograph
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

William Merritt Chase
Man wearing Gold-Rimmed Spectacles
ca. 1880
oil on canvas
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Norman Deck
Joan at Witty Combe
1910
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

William Ramsden Brealey
Rich Man's Treasure - Poor Man's Treasure
ca. 1925
lithograph (poster)
Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam

Herbert Bayer
Herbert Bayer, Association of German Advertising Professionals
(Bauhaus in Dessau)
1928
lithograph and letterpress
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York

Edward Burra
Skull in a Landscape
1946
watercolor and gouache on paper
Imperial War Museum, London

Richard Benson
Stones of Newport
1977-78
palladium print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Simon Cooper
Still Life (Package)
1993
etching
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Sam Contis
Eggs
2015
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Dedication to the first printing (1623) of The Duchess of Malfi

To the Right Honourable, George Harding, Baron Berkeley of Berkeley Castle, and Knight of the Order of the Bath to the Illustrious Prince Charles.

My Noble Lord,

    That I may present my excuse why, being a stranger to your lordship, I offer this poem to your patronage, I plead this warrant: men who never saw the sea, yet desire to behold that regiment of waters, choose some eminent river to guide them thither, and make that, as it were, their conduct or postilion; by the like ingenious means has your fame arrived at my knowledge, receiving it from some of worth who both in contemplation and practice owe to your Honour their clearest service.  I do not altogether look up at your title, the ancientest nobility being but a relic of time past, and the truest honour indeed being for a man to confer honour on himself, which your learning arrives to propagate and shall make you arrive at the dignity of a great example.  I am confident this work is not unworthy your Honour's perusal; for by such poems as this, poets have kissed the hands of great princes and drawn their gentle eyes to look down upon their sheets of paper when the poets themselves were bound up in their winding sheets.  The like courtesy from your Lordship shall make you live in your grave and laurel spring out of it, when the ignorant scorners of the Muses (that like worms in libraries seem to live only to destroy learning) shall wither, neglected and forgotten.  This work and myself I humbly present to your approved censure, it being the utmost of my wishes to have your Honourable self my weighty and perspicuous comment: which grace so done me, shall ever be acknowledged

                                                                                            By your Lordship's

                                                                                                 in all duty and observance,

                                                                                                         John Webster