Friday, June 12, 2026

Aloft

Oliviero Gatti after Pordenone
God the Father creating the World
1615
engraving
(after church fresco in Piacenza)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Guglielmo Caccia
God the Father
before 1625
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Bartholomeus Spranger
God the Father with the Holy Spirit
ca. 1582
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Genoese Artist
Musical Angels on Clouds
ca. 1650-1700
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Ubaldo Gandolfi
Ceiling Design with Musical Angels
before 1781
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

François Boucher
Three Cherubs
ca. 1750
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Luca Cambiaso
God the Father observing the Martyrdom of a Saint
before 1585
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Samuel Bottschild
Angel
ca. 1675
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Gaspare Diziani
Angel in Clouds
before 1767
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Gaspare Diziani
Flying Putti with Fish Tails
before 1767
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Abraham Bloemaert
Flying Putti
ca. 1590
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jacob de Wit
Three Cherub-Heads in Clouds
before 1754
pastel on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Giambattista Tiepolo
Foreshortened Figure on Cloud
before 1762
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giambattista Tiepolo
Foreshortened Figure on Cloud
before 1762
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giocondo Albertolli
Ceiling Decoration for Palazzo Casnedi in Milan
ca. 1780
hand-colored etching
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous Printmaker
Design for Ceiling Decoration
16th century
woodcut
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

The army of the Peloponnesians marching forward came first to Oenoe, a town of Attica, the place where they intended to break in, and encamping before it, prepared with engines and by other means to assault the wall.  For Oenoe, lying on the confines between Attica and Boeotia, was walled about, and the Athenians kept a garrison in it for defence of the country when at any time there should be war.  For which cause they made preparation for the assault of it, and also spent much time about it otherwise.  

And Archidamus [Lacedaemonian general] for this was not a little taxed as thought to have been both slow in gathering together the forces for the war and also to have favoured the Athenians in that he encouraged not the army to a forwardness in it.  And afterwards likewise his stay in the isthmus and his slowness in the whole journey was laid to his charge, but especially his delay at Oenoe.  For in this time the Athenians retired into the city: whereas it was thought that the Peloponnesians, marching speedily, might but for this delay have taken them all without.  So passionate was the army of Archidamus for his stay before Oenoe.  But expecting that the Athenians, whilst their territory was yet unhurt, would relent and not endure to see it wasted, for that cause (as it was reported) he held his hand. 

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)