Ritual

workshop of Peter Paul Rubens
Consecration of Decius Mus
ca. 1616-17
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

workshop of Jacob Jordaens after Peter Paul Rubens
Obsequies of Decius Mus
ca. 1616-17
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
The Oath of Hannibal
before 1684
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

attributed to Benedetto Bordone
Triumphal Procession
1499
woodcut and letterpress
(from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna
published by Aldus Manutius in Venice)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Giulio Campi
Roman Triumph
ca. 1545
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Vincenzo Camuccini
The Continence of Scipio
1808-11
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne
Emperor Augustus receiving Ambassadors from India
ca. 1672-75
oil on canvas
Château de Versailles

Max Klinger
The Ruler
1911
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki
The Four Seasons
bringing Fruit and Flowers to Flora
ca. 1790
etching (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Edward Burne-Jones
Dream of the Nine Muses
1871
gouache on canvas
(reportedly the record of an actual dream)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Cornelis de Vos
The Anointing of Solomon
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner
The Circumcision of Isaac
ca. 1755-60
oil on canvas
(study for mezzotint)
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Jan Victors
Jacob blessing the Sons of Joseph
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Jan Victors
Jacob blessing the Sons of Joseph
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Alessandro Tiarini
St John the Evangelist giving Communion to the Virgin
ca. 1615
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum Hannover

Georg Lemberger
Opening of the Book by the Lamb
1524
hand-colored woodcut
(illustration to the "Luther Bible")
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

A Postcard from the Volcano 

Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;

And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;

And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of thing, left what we felt

At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion-house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky

Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion's look
And what we said of it became

A part of what it is . . . Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,

Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,

A dirty house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.

– Wallace Stevens (1936)