Figures (Allegory)

workshop of Timoteo Viti
Allegory of Chastity
ca. 1515-20
oil on panel
Wellcome Collection, London

Giovanni di Lorenzo Larciani
Allegory of Fortune
ca. 1520-25
oil on panel
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Giorgio Vasari and Gaspar Becerra
Allegory of Patience
ca. 1551-52
oil on canvas
Galleria Palatina, Firenze

Maso da San Friano (Tommaso d'Antonio Manzuoli)
Allegory of Fortitude
ca. 1560-62
oil on panel
Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze

Giovanni Maria Butteri
Allegory of Time
ca. 1582-85
oil on canvas
private collection

Lorenzo dello Sciorina
Allegory of Truth
ca. 1582-85
oil on canvas
private collection

Werner van den Valckert
Allegory of Music
1625
oil on panel
Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama

Simone Pignoni
Allegory of Peace
ca. 1670-80
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Simon de Vos
Allegory of Vanitas
before 1676
oil on canvas
private collection

Anonymous French Sculptor
Allegory of Commerce
1697
stone relief (external architectural ornament)
Musée du Louvre

Antonio Domenico Triva
Allegory of Music
before 1699
oil on canvas
private collection

Pierre-Charles Trémolières
Allegory of Painting
before 1739
drawing
British Museum

Antoine Vestier
Allegory of the Arts
1788
oil on canvas
Horvitz Collection, Wilmington, Delaware

Gaetano Gandolfi
Allegory of Fortitude
ca. 1790
terracotta
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Elihu Vedder
Allegory of Rome as Mother of Arts
1894
oil on canvas
Brooklyn Museum

Gustave Moreau
Allegory of Prudence
before 1898
drawing
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York

Curt Stoeving
Allegory of Life
ca. 1925-30
oil on canvas
Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Firenze

from Chard Whitlow (Mr. Eliot's Sunday Evening Postscript)

There are certain precautions – though none of them very reliable –

Against the blast from bombs, or the flying splinter,

But not against the blast from Heaven, vento dei venti, 

The wind within a wind, unable to speak for wind;

And the frigid burnings of purgatory will not be touched 

By any emollient.

                              I think you will find this put,

Far better than I could ever hope to express it,

In the words of Karma: 'It is, we believe,

Idle to hope that the simple stirrup-pump

Can extinguish hell.'

– Henry Reed (1941)