Romans

Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi)
Bust of Faustina
before 1527
bronze, partly gilt
(from the Gonzaga Collection in Mantua)
Musée du Louvre

Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi)
Bust of Faustina
before 1527
bronze, partly gilt
(from the Gonzaga Collection in Mantua)
Musée du Louvre

Roman Empire
Head of Youth
AD 220-30
marble
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Anonymous Italian Artist
Scipio
ca. 1475
marble relief
Musée du Louvre

Pierre Julien
Dying Gladiator
1779
marble (reception piece)
Musée du Louvre

Louis-Pierre Deseine
Mucius Scaevola before Lars Porsena
1791
marble
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous Spanish Artist
Gunpowder Flask with Mucius Scaevola before Lars Porsena
ca. 1540-60
gilt copper
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous Italian Artist
Bust of Augustus
17th century
bronze, partly gilt
Musée du Louvre

Roman Empire
Head of Man
AD 220-30
marble
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Roman Empire
Youth
AD 190-200
marble
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Pietro Bernini
Bust of Emperor Lucius Verus
before 1629
marble
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Anonymous Italian Artist
Roman General
17th century
marble
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Anonymous Italian Artist
Roman General
17th century
marble
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi)
Bust of Emperor Antoninus Pius
before 1527
bronze, partly gilt
(from the Gonzaga Collection in Mantua)
Musée du Louvre

Nikolaus Knüpfer
Roman Matrons supplicating Coriolanus
ca. 1646
drawing
British Museum

Johann Heinrich Ramberg
Family Members beseeching Coriolanus for Peace
1813
drawing
British Museum

Who Goes with Fergus?

Who will go drive with Fergus now,

And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,

And dance upon the level shore?

Young man, lift up your russet brow,

And lift your tender eyelids, maid,

And brood on hopes and fear no more.

And no more turn aside and brood

Upon love's bitter mystery;

For Fergus rules the brazen cars,

And rules the shadows of the wood,

And the white breast of the dim sea

And all dishevelled wandering stars.

– William Butler Yeats (1892)

Scenery

Giulio Aristide Sartorio
Banks of the Tiber in Rome near the Collegio Clementino
1890
oil on canvas
Museo di Roma a Palazzo Braschi

Caspar van Wittel
View of the Tiber with Ponte Rotto and Ripa Grande, Rome
1684
oil on canvas
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Carlo Baldassare Simelli
La Bocca della Verità, Rome
ca. 1860-70
albumen print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Willem van Nieulandt the Younger
Temple of Hercules Victor in Piazza Bocca della Verità, Rome
ca. 1603
drawing
British Museum

Giorgio Sommer
Rome Skyline
ca. 1880
albumen silver print
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation)

Aaron Siskind
Rome: Arch of Constantine 5
1967
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jane Martha St. John
Colosseum, Rome
1856
albumen silver print from paper negative
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Achille Etna Michallon
Colosseum, Rome
1803
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Bartolomeo Pinelli
Penitents praying at Altars in the Colosseum
1829
watercolor and ink on paper
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Luigi Serra
San Carlo ai Catinari, Rome
1885
oil on canvas
Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Florence

Domenico Quattrociocchi
View of Isola Tiberina, Rome
1930
oil on canvas
Museo di Roma a Palazzo Braschi

Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Forum of Nerva, Rome
ca. 1769-71
etching
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Lievin Cruyl
Piazza di S. Pietro, Rome
1666
etching
British Museum

Jan van Call
Walls of Rome near Porta S. Sebastiano
ca. 1690
watercolor on paper
British Museum

Anthony Hernandez
Rome #25
1999
C-print
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Victor-Jean Nicolle
Venetian Embassy in Palazzo Venezia, Rome
ca. 1790-1810
drawing
British Museum

Walter Severn
Protestant Cemetery, Rome
1882
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

from Prometheus Unbound

            We have passed Age's icy caves,

            And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,

And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray:

            Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee

            Of shadow-peopled Infancy,

Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;

            A paradise of vaulted bowers,

            Lit by downward-gazing flowers,

            And watery paths that wind between

            Wildernesses calm and green,

Peopled by shapes too bright to see,

And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;

Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!

– Percy Bysshe Shelley (1820)

Roman Marbles

Roman Empire
Bust of Philosopher
AD 100-125
marble
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Roman Empire
Head of Woman
AD 220-260
marble
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Roman Empire
Herm of Bearded Deity
2nd century AD
marble
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Roman Empire
Bough of Plane Tree
1st century AD
marble relief fragment
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Roman Empire
Dionysus
1st century AD
marble relief
(imitating archaic style)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Roman Empire
Hercules stealing Tripod from Apollo's Temple,
with Apollo resisting
20 BC-AD 20
marble fragment of fountain
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Roman Empire
Procession of Sacred Objects
AD 25-50
marble relief
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Roman Empire
Legionary from Triumphal Arch
AD 100
marble relief 
Antikensammlung,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Roman Empire
Apoxyomenos
AD 130-150
marble
(forearms and vase added, 16th century)
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Roman Empire
Artemis
2nd century AD
marble, heavily restored
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Roman Empire
Athena
2nd-3rd century AD
marble, heavily restored
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Roman Empire
Muse
2nd century AD
marble
(antique torso with modern head and limbs)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Roman Empire
Muse
AD 140-150
marble
(heavily restored, with modern head)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Roman Empire
Torso of Hercules
AD 130-150
marble
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Roman Empire
Torso of Man wearing Chiton and Cloak
AD 130-140
marble
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Roman Empire
Vase
(with relief figures of Artemis and others)
30-20 BC
marble
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Charlotte's attitude had in short its moments of flowering into pretty excesses of civility, self-effacements in the presence of others, sudden little formalisms of suggestion and recognition, that might have represented her sense of the duty of not 'losing sight' of a social distinction.  This impression came out most for Maggie when, in their easier intervals, they had only themselves to regard, and when her companion's inveteracy of never passing first, of not sitting till she was seated, of not interrupting till she appeared to give leave, of not forgetting too familiarly that in addition to being important she was also sensitive, had the effect of throwing over their intercouse a kind of silver tissue of decorum.  It hung there above them like a canopy of state, a reminder that though the lady-in-waiting was an established favourite, safe in her position, a little queen, however good-natured, was always a little queen and might with small warning remember it.

– Henry James, The Golden Bowl (1904)

Eclogues

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Portrait of Claire Sennegon, niece of the artist
1837
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Samuel Palmer
Illustration to Virgil's Eclogues - O Fortunate Old Man
ca. 1874
drawing
British Museum

Kenneth Noland
Day
1964
acrylic on canvas
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Roman Empire
Flask with Obelisk
15 BC - AD 25
cast and blown cameo glass
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Portrait of Alexina Legoux, seamstress employed by
Mme. Sennegon, dressmaker and sister of the artist
ca. 1829-30
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Samuel Palmer
Illustration to Virgil's Eclogues - Nymphs mourning Daphnis
ca. 1876
drawing
British Museum

Kenneth Noland
Dawn's Road
1970
acrylic on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Roman Empire
Flask
1st century AD
molded mosaic glass
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Portrait of architect Toussaint Lemaistre
1833
oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Samuel Palmer
Illustration to Virgil's Eclogues - In a deep sleep Silenus there reclined
ca. 1880
drawing
British Museum

Kenneth Noland
Merry Hill
1970
acrylic on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin

Roman Empire
Flask
1st century AD
blown glass
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Jeune fille grecque à la fontaine
ca. 1840
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Samuel Palmer
Illustration to Virgil's Eclogues - Come, Fairest, if Thou care for Me at all
ca. 1880
drawing
British Museum

Kenneth Noland
Wild Indigo
1967
acrylic on canvas
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Roman Empire
Alabastron
1st century BC - 1st century AD
core-formed glass with gold inclusion
(former Barberini collection, Rome)
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Haydée, from Byron's Don Juan
ca. 1825-30
oil on canvas
Musée-du-Louvre

The Philosopher and the Lover to a Mistress Dying

Lover.                  Your beauty, ripe and calm and fresh

                                    As eastern summers are,

                            Must now, forsaking time and flesh,

                                    Add light to some small star.

Philosopher.        Whilst yet she lives, were stars decayed,

                                    Their light by hers relief might find;

                            But death will lead her to a shade

                                    Where love is cold and beauty blind.

Lover.                  Lovers, whose priests all poets are,

                                    Think every mistress, when she dies,

                            Is changed at least into a star:

                                    And who dares doubt the poets wise?

Philosopher.        But ask not bodies doomed to die

                                    To what abode they go;

                            Since Knowledge is but Sorrow's spy,

                                    It is not safe to know.                   

– Sir William Davenant (1606-1668)