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| Jan Baptist Barbé St John Berchmans ca. 1625 etching Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich |
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| Anonymous Artist Gentleman admiring a Japanese Woodcut ca. 1900 oil on canvas Clemens-Sels Museum, Neuss, Germany |
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| Henri de Braekeleer The Picture Lover ca. 1884 oil on canvas Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp |
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| Philipp Bender Painting Galleries at Darmstadt Castle ca. 1825-30 oil on canvas Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt |
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| Crispin Gurholt Voyage Pittoresque 2007 C-print Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø |
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| Crispin Gurholt Voyage Pittoresque - Live Photo #13 2007 C-print Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø |
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| Juan Muñoz Untitled 2000 polyester resin figure with mirror Musée de Grenoble |
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| Jost Amman Portrait of artist Wenzel Jamnitzer at work ca. 1580 etching Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich |
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| Albrecht Dürer Drawing a Model in Perspective 1525 woodcut Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Jan Hulswit Self Portrait working in the Studio ca. 1795 drawing Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
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| Georg Friedrich Kersting Interior with Woman Embroidering 1817 oil on canvas National Museum, Warsaw |
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| Jakob Alt The Artist's Studio 1836 watercolor on paper Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Félix Buhot Corner of the Studio ca. 1886-89 oil on panel Musée Thomas-Henry, Cherbourg |
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| Pietro Testa Socrates with his Followers 1648 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Master of 1515 Hercules and the Philosopher ca. 1515-20 drypoint Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Åsa Herrgård Memories of Scents 2019 jesmonite and plaster Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
I saw Alexis walking in the road at noon-tide, at the season when the summer was just being shorn of the tresses of her fruits; and double rays burnt me, the rays of love from the boy's eyes and others from the sun. The sun's night laid to rest again, but love's were kindled more in my dreams by the phantom of beauty. So sleep, who releases others from toil, brought pain to me, imaging in my soul a loveliness which is living fire.
In summer, when I was athirst, I kissed the tender-fleshed boy and said, when I was free of my parching thirst, "Father Zeus, dost thou drink the nectareous kiss of Ganymede, and is this the wine he tenders to thy lips?" For now that I have kissed Antiochus, fairest of our youth, I have drunk the sweet honey of the soul.
Pain has begun to touch my heart, for hot Love, as he strayed, scratched it with the tip of his nails, and, smiling, said, "Again, O unhappy lover, thou shalt have the sweet wound, burnt by biting honey." Since when, seeing among the youths the fresh sapling Diophantus, I can neither fly nor abide.
O sore-afflicted soul, now thou burnest in the fire and now thou revivest, recovering thy breath. Why dost thou weep? When thou didst nurse merciless Love in thy bosom knewest thou not that he was being nursed for thy bane? Didst thou not know it? Now learn to know the pay of thy good nursing, receiving from him fire and cold snow therewith. Thyself thou hast chosen this; bear the pain. Thou sufferest the due guerdon of what thou hast done, burnt by his boiling honey.
Did I not cry it to thee, my soul, "By Cypris, thou wilt be taken, O thou love-lorn, that fliest again and again to the limed bough"? Did I not cry it? And the snare has caught thee. Why dost thou struggle vainly in thy bonds? Love himself hath bound thy wings and set thee on the fire, and sprays thee with scents when thou faintest, and gives thee when thou art athirst hot tears to drink.
Our guest has a wound and we knew it not. Sawest thou not with what pain he heaved his breath up from his chest when he drink the third cup? And all the roses, casting their petals, fell on the ground from the man's wreaths. There is something burns him fiercely; by the gods I guess not at random, but a thief myself, I know a thief's footprints.
– from Book XII (Strato's Musa Puerilis) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)