Earthen

John Michael Rysbrack
Edward Salter, aged six
1748
terracotta
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Gustave Deloye
Young Woman of the 18th century
ca. 1870-80
terracotta
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Philippe-Laurent Roland
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1785-95
terracotta
Detroit Institute of Arts

Giuseppe Piamontini
Venus and Cupid
1711
terracotta
(modello for sculpture)
Bode Museum, Berlin

Giovanni Battista Foggini
David victorious over Goliath
1722
terracotta
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

attributed to Donatello
Madonna and Child
ca. 1410-15
terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Italian Sculptor
Copy of the Belvedere Torso
16th century
terracotta
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

workshop of Bartolomeo Ammanati
Bacchic Figure
ca. 1550
terracotta
Detroit Institute of Arts

Baccio da Montelupo
St John the Baptist
ca. 1500
terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci)
Holy Family
ca. 1515
terracotta
(modello for painting)
Bode Museum, Berlin

Benedetto da Maino
Portrait of Filippo Strozzi
ca. 1475
terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Pierre Puget
Hercules
ca. 1660
terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Austrian Sculptor
Lamentation
ca. 1515-20
terracotta relief
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Jacopo Sansovino
Sacra Conversazione
ca. 1530-40
terracotta relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Amphoriskos
550 BC
terracotta
(miniature vessel excavated on Samos)
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Louise Nevelson
Untitled
ca. 1947
painted terracotta, with metal rods
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

And Pericles the son of Xantippus, the principal man at the time of all Athens and most sufficient both for speech and action, gave his advice in such manner as followeth: "Men of Athens, I am still not only of the same opinion not to give way to the Peloponnesians (notwithstanding I know that men have not the same passions in the war itself which they have when they are incited to it but change their opinions with the events), but also I see that I must now advise the same things or very near to what I have before delivered.  And I require of you with whom my counsel shall take place that if we miscarry in aught, you will either make the best of it, as decreed by common consent, or if we prosper, not to attribute it to your own wisdom only.  For it falleth out with the events of actions, no less than with the purposes of man, to proceed with uncertainty, which is also the cause that when anything happeneth contrary to our expectation, we use to lay the fault on fortune.  That the Lacedaemonians, both formerly and especially now, take counsel how to do us mischief is a thing manifest.  For whereas it is said that in our mutual controversies we shall give and receive trials of judgment, and in the meantime either side hold what they possess, they never yet sought any such trial themselves, nor will accept of the same offered by us.  They will clear themselves of their accusations by war rather than by words, and come hither no more now to expostulate but to command."   

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

Hector Guimard

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(Guimard lived and worked in this house)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(entrance detail with limestone surround)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(window details in limestone and bronze)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(window details in limestone and bronze)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(ground-floor window details in limestone and bronze)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(bedroom with furniture and fittings designed by Guimard)
ca. 1909
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(curtain panel designed by Guimard)
ca. 1909
embroidered silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(dining room with furniture and fittings designed by Guimard)
ca. 1910
platinum print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Apartment House designed by Guimard
1911
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Balustrade designed by Guimard
1905
cast iron
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Design for Architectural Panel
ca. 1925
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Design for Tombstone
ca. 1900
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Printmaker
Guimard Exhibition at Musée d'Orsay, Paris
1992
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Hat Pin designed by Guimard for his Wife
1910
gilt bronze
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Printmaker
Le Style Guimard
(the designer working in his studio)
1903
hand-colored gelatin silver print (postcard)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Picture Frame designed by Guimard
1907
gilt bronze
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sèvres Manufactory
Vase designed by Guimard
1903
stoneware
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

from The Consolation of Philosophy

    The Music, flowing through the shade

And darkness, did with ease invade

The silent and attentive Ghosts;

And Cerberus, which guards those coasts

With his lowd barkings, overcome

By the sweet Notes, was now struck dumb.

The Furies, us'd to rave and howl

And prosecute each guilty soul,

Had lost their rage, and in a deep

Transport did most profusely weep.

Ixion's wheel stopt, and the curst

Tantalus almost kill'd with thirst,

Though the Streams now did make no haste,

But waited for him, none would taste.

That Vultur, which fed still upon

Tityus his liver, now was gone

To feed on Air, and would not stay

Though almost famish'd, with her prey.

    Won with these wonders, their fierce Prince

At last cried out, We yield! and since

Thy merits claim no less, take hence

Thy Consort for thy Recompence.

But, Orpheus, to this law we bind

Our grant, you must not look behind,

Nor of your fair Love have one Sight,

Till out of our Dominions quite. 

– Boethius (AD 476-524), translated by Henry Vaughan (1678)

John Flaxman

John Flaxman
Design for Monument to Alderman Beckford
1770
drawing
Tate Britain

John Flaxman
Thomas Chatterton receiving Bowl of Poison from Despair
ca. 1775-80
drawing
British Museum

John Flaxman
Waiting on Sir Ed. Hales at St Stephen's
1775
drawing
(Flaxman caricatures himself at right as a poor supplicant)
Tate Britain

John Flaxman
Self Portrait, age 24
1779
drawing
University College London Art Museum

John Flaxman
Kneeling Figures receiving Two-Handled Cup
ca. 1780-1820
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

John Flaxman
Alcestis and Admetus
1789
drawing
Tate Britain

John Flaxman
Sheet of Studies
(from album of designs for tombs and monuments)
before 1820
drawing
Tate Britain

John Flaxman
Two Women at a Counter
before 1820
drawing
Yale Center for British Art

John Flaxman
Woman and Child
before 1820
drawing
Tate Britain

John Flaxman
Design for Monument to poet William Collins
1792
drawing, incorporated in letter (recto)
British Museum

John Flaxman
Design for Monument to poet William Collins
1792
drawing, incorporated in letter (verso)
British Museum

John Flaxman (design) for Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Bulb Pot
before 1800
black basalt
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York

John Flaxman (design) for Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Urn
before 1800
black basalt
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York

John Flaxman
Statue of St John the Evangelist in Westminster Abbey
ca. 1811
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

John Flaxman
St Michael overcoming Satan
ca. 1817
plaster modello for marble sculpture
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

John Flaxman
Shield of Achilles
1821-22
silver-gilt
(designed and modeled by Flaxman, cast by others)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Henry Wolf after George Romney
John  Flaxman modeling Bust of William Hayley
1899
wood-engraving
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

from Pharsalia

    A woode untoucht of old was growing there,

Of thicke set trees, whose boughs spreading and faire,

Meeting obscured the enclosed aire,

And made darke shades exiling Phoebus rayes.

There no rude Fawne, nor wanton Silvan playes,

No Nimph disports, but cruell Deityes

Claim barbarous rites, and bloody sacrifice:

Each tree's defil'd with humane blood: if wee

Beleeve traditions of antiquitie,

No bird dares light upon those hallowed bowes:

No beasts make there their dennes: no wind there blowes,

Nor lightning falls: a sad religious awe

The quiet trees unstirr'd by wind doe draw.

Blacke water currents from darke fountaines flow:

The gods unpolisht Images doe know

No arte, but plaine and formelesse trunkes they are.

Their mosse, and mouldinesse procures a feare:

The Common figures of knowne Deities

Are not so fear'd: not knowing what God tis

Makes him more awfull: by relation

The shaken earths darke carvernes oft did grone:

Fall'n Yew trees often of themselves would rise:

With seeming fire oft flam'd th'unburned trees:

And winding dragons the cold oakes imbrace:

None give neere worship to that balefull place;

The people leave it to the Gods alone.

– Lucan (AD 39-65), translated by Thomas May (1626)