Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1932)

Milton Avery
Portrait of Annette Kaufman
1932
oil on panel
Portland Art Museum, Oregon

Max Beckmann
Gypsy Girl II (Ilonka)
1932
oil on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Karl Blossfeldt
Bryonia alba
1932
photogravure
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Pierre Bonnard
White Interior
1932
oil on canvas
Musée de Grenoble

James Brooks
Self Portrait
1932
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Paul Citroen
Self Portrait with Camera
1932
gelatin silver print
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Jean Dunand
Self Portrait
1932
mosaic of stone and glass tiles
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Arvid Fougstedt
The Balcony
1932
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Don Freeman
Ballet from Band Wagon
1932
lithograph
Fralin Museum of Art, Charlottesville, Virginia

Honoré Guilbeau
Evening
1932
lithograph
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Honoré Guilbeau
Night
1932
lithograph
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Raymond Jonson
Variations on Rhythm P
1932
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Martin Lewis
Cronies
1932
aquatint
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas

Leo John Meissner
Stairway
1932
wood-engraving
Seattle Art Museum

Lloyd Sargent
South Akard Street
1932
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Steuben Glass Works
Diana Vase
1932
blown and engraved glass
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas

from Marginalia

Fate succumbs

many a species: one alone

jeopardises itself.

          *          *          *

Needing above all

silence and warmth, we produce

brutal cold and noise.

          *          *          * 

Wicked deeds have their glamour,

but those who commit them

are always bores.

          *           *         *

In semi-literate countries

demagogues pay

court to teen-agers.

          *           *          *

The Queen fled, leaving

books behind her

that shocked the pious usurper.

          *          *          *

Mulberries dropping,

twinges of lumbago,

as he read Clarendon.

– W.H. Auden (1965-68)

Remnants

Anonymous Italian Sculptor
Chess Piece with Elephant
ca. 1085-1100
ivory
Musée du Louvre

Hubert Robert
Ponte Salario, Rome
ca. 1775
 oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Roman Empire
Medusa
AD 115-150
stone mosaic floor
(excavated in Rome in 1911)
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Charles Ricketts
Flight of Cupid
ca. 1901
ink and gouache on paper
British Museum

Anonymous Italian Sculptor
St Jerome removing Thorn from Lion's paw
15th century
ivory
Musée du Louvre

Hubert Robert
Grand Galerie of the Louvre in Ruins
1796
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Roman Empire
Combat between Dares and Entellus
AD 175-200
stone and glass mosaic floor
(excavated in France ca. 1900)
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Charles Ricketts
Woman washing her Hair
ca. 1889
drawing
(unrealized print study for The Dial)
British Museum

Anonymous Florentine Sculptor
Youth in Classical Garb
ca. 1535-40
ivory
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Hubert Robert
Proposed Renovations to the Grand Galerie of the Louvre
1796
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Roman Empire
Orpheus and Animals
AD 150-200
stone and glass mosaic floor
(excavated in France in 1912)
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Charles Ricketts
A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde
ca. 1889
drawing
(print study for book illustration)
British Museum

Anonymous Italian Sculptor
Portrait of Sir Thomas Robinson in Classical Garb
1730
ivory relief, carved in Rome
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Hubert Robert
View of Villa Medici, Rome
ca. 1800
watercolor on paper
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Roman Empire
Medusa
AD 115-150
central motif of stone mosaic floor
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Charles Ricketts
Costume Design for Siegfried
(opera by Richard Wagner)
ca. 1925-30
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Anonymous Italian Sculptor after Andrea Mantegna
Roman Triumph
ca. 1475-1500
ivory relief fragment
(Napoleonic loot seized in Germany)
Musée du Louvre

Monet later recalled that Sargent, asking him for a tube of black paint one day at Giverny, had been astonished to learn that his host had none: "Then I can't paint," he cried, and added, "How do you do it?" 

– Jean Strouse, from Family Romance: John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024)

Solids

Anonymous Venetian Maker
Compote
ca. 1550-1650
glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Baccarat Cristallerie
Paperweight
ca. 1845-55
blown glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Boston & Sandwich Glass Co.
Cologne Bottle
ca. 1860
blown glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Boston & Sandwich Glass Co.
Sweetmeat Dish
ca. 1860
blown glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Boston & Sandwich Glass Co.
Epergne
ca. 1850
blown glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Thomas Webb & Sons (Stourbridge, England)
Vase
ca. 1886
glass
Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh

George and Thomas Woodall
The Intruders
ca. 1893
carved glass cameo
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Albert Louis Dammouse
Bowl
ca. 1905
pâte de verre
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Floriform Vase
ca. 1907
blown glass
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Jacoba van Heemskerck
Composition
ca. 1920
leaded glass
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Anonymous French Maker
Perfume Bottle
ca. 1925
glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

René Lalique
Bowl with Parrots
1931
glass
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Flavio Poli
Figurine
ca. 1930-40
solid worked and iridized glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Alice Trumbull Mason
Abstraction
1941
mosaic
(shells, stones, tiles and glass set into concrete)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Andre DeLatte
Vase
before 1953
blown glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

William Morris (born 1957)
Canopic Jar: Javan Muntjac
1995
blown and applied glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Deborah Moore
Yellow Lady Slipper
2008
blown glass
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Thee too, O King, hath she taken

    And bound in her tenfold chain;

    Yet faint not, neither complain;

The dead thou wilt not awaken

    For all thy weeping again.

They perish, whom gods begot;

The night releaseth them not.

Beloved was she that died

And dear shall ever abide.

For this was the queen among women, Admetus, that lay by thy side.

Nor as the multitude lowly,

    Asleep in their sepulchres,

    Not as their grave be hers,

But like as the gods held holy,

    The worship of wayfarers.

Yea, all that travel the way

Far off shall see it and say,

Lo, erst for her lord she died,

To-day she sitteth enskied;

Hail, lady, be gracious to usward; that always her honour abide. 

– Euripides, from Alcestis, translated by A.E. Housman (before 1936)