Wings

Roman Empire
Ornamental Wall Fragment with Winged Figure
1st century AD
fresco
Princeton University Art Museum

Taddeo di Bartolo
Resurrection of the Virgin
ca. 1410
tempera on panel (predella fragment)
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Altobello Melone
Tobias and the Angel
ca. 1520-25
oil on panel (altarpiece fragment)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Bonifazio de' Pitati (Bonifazio Veronese)
Angel of the Annunciation
ca. 1543-44
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Riccardo Taurini
Guardian Angel
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
private collection

Juan de Valdés Leal
St Peter freed from Prison by an Angel
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Catedral de Sevilla

Eustache Le Sueur
Figure of Fame
ca. 1653-55
drawing (study for painting)
British Museum

Lodewijk de Vadder
Tobias and the Angel
before 1655
oil on canvas
private collection

Pieter Thys
Daedalus fixing wings onto shoulders of Icarus
before 1677
oil on canvas
private collection

Domenico Antonio Vaccaro
Guardian Angel
before 1724
marble-
Basilica di San Paolo Maggiore, Naples

Hamlet Winstanley after Guido Reni
Expulsion from Paradise
1728
etching
Wellcome Collection, London

Antonio Gai
Angel as Candlestick
1749
gilt bronze
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Abbott Handerson Thayer
An Angel
1893
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin

Francis Augustus Lathrop
Study of Sculpted Wing
ca. 1895
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York

George Wilson
Study of Shoes and Wing
ca. 1875
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Graham Sutherland
Bird
1954
lithograph
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Barbara Hepworth
Maquette for Winged Figure
1957
painted brass and wire on concrete base
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York

from Eros

    Surely thy body is thy mind,

For in thy face is nought to find,

Only thy soft unchristened smile

That shadows neither love nor guile

But shameless will and power immense

In secret sensuous innocence. 

– Robert Bridges (1885) 

Wings

Peter Paul Rubens
Three Musical Angels
ca. 1615-20
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rembrandt
The Phoenix, or, The Statue Overthrown
1658
etching, engraving and drypoint
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Greek Culture in South Italy
Winged Victory
3rd-2nd century BC
terracotta
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jacques de Gheyn II
Fly
ca. 1600
watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Cherubino Alberti
Winged Genius with Palm Branch
1608
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous German Artist after Bartholomeus Spranger
Holy Family with Angels
17th century
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Hans Burgkmair the Younger
Angel sealing the Pit
(series, Scenes from the Apocalypse)
ca. 1550
drawing
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Claes Cornelisz Moeyaert
Angels at the Empty Tomb of Christ
before 1655
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Giorgio Vasari
Winged Victory with Prisoners
ca. 1540
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Battista Franco (il Semolei)
Birds and Insects
before 1561
etching and engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Girolamo Mocetto
Winged Allegorical Figure with Arrow
ca. 1495
drawing on vellum
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Theodor Rihel of Strasbourg
1568
woodcut and letterpress
(winged allegorical figure) 
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours
Mercury in Flight, after an Antique Fresco
ca. 1780-92
drawing
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Anonymous Artist
Half-Length Figure of Angel
17th century
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Anonymous Artist
Winged Genius with Poet
17th century
drawing
(design for lunette decoration)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous Artist after Aegidius Sadeler
Fortuna sailing atop Winged Sphere
ca. 1590
watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

There is an interesting pamphlet by a minor painter called Henry Richter, published in 1817 – the year Constable exhibited Wivenhoe Park – which well illustrates the spirit of creative research that animated the young painters of the nineteenth century.  It is called Daylight: A Recent Discovery in the Art of Painting.  In this amusing dialogue the painter challenges the Dutch seventeenth-century masters, or rather their ghosts assembled at an exhibition, with the question: "Was there no clear sky in your day, and did not the broad blue light of the atmosphere shine then, as it does now?  I find it is this which gives the chief splendour of sunshine by contrasting the golden with the azure lights." 

Like Constable, Richter scrutinized the traditional formula handed down in the science of painting and found that if you tested pictures painted in that way they did not look like scenes in daylight.  He therefore advocated the addition of more blue in contrast to yellow in order to achieve that equivalence to daylight which had hitherto eluded art.

Richter's criticism was right, but he does not appear to have succeeded in producing a satisfactory alternative.  Perhaps he was not inventive enough to put his hypothesis to the test of a successful painting, perhaps he lacked the stamina for trying again and again, and so he disappeared into the oblivion of a tame and uninspired Victorian illustrator while Constable went on experimenting till he found those brighter and cooler harmonies which, indeed, took painting nearer to plein air.  

But the evidence of history suggests that all such discoveries involve the systematic comparison of past achievements and present motifs, in other words, the tentative projection of works of art onto nature, experiments as to how far nature can in fact be seen in such terms. 

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

Beings

Giovanni di Paolo
Angel of the Annunciation
1430
tempera and gold on panel
Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon

Sano di Pietro
Angel of the Annunciation
ca. 1440-50
tempera and gold on pane
Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon

Agostino di Duccio
Virgin and Child with Angels
ca. 1465
marble relief
Musée du Louvre

Giovanni Bellini
Madonna of the Red Cherubs
1485
oil on panel
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Bernaert van Orley
Putto with Arms of Jacques Coëne
ca. 1513
oil on panel
(reverse of altarpiece painting)
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Andrea Feltrini (Andrea di Cosimo)
Cherubs with Arms of Medici Pope
1515
fresco
Cappella dei Papi, Convento Domenicano di Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Battista Dossi
Holy Family with young St John the Baptist and an Angel
ca. 1530-40
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Paolo Veronese
St Agatha crowned by Cherubs
ca. 1580
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Orazio Gentileschi
St Francis supported by an Angel
1612-13
oil on canvas
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Francesco Albani
Angels
ca. 1627-32
fresco (in ruinous condition)
Chiesa di Santa Maria di Galliera, Bologna

Jacques Stella
Christ in the Wilderness attended by Angels
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Michel Dorigny
Winged Putti bearing the Arms
of Anne of Austria, Regent of France
ca. 1659-61
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Michel Dorigny
Winged Putti bearing the Arms
of Anne of Austria, Regent of France
ca. 1659-61
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Domenico Piola and Niccolò Viviano
Ornamental Putti
ca. 1675
fresco
Palazzo Rosso, Musei di Strada Nuova, Genoa

Anonymous Sienese Painter
St Christina of Bolsena tended by Angels
ca. 1650-1700
oil on canvas
Collezioni della Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena

Niccolò Ricciolini
Putti crowning Statue of Armed God
before 1772
ceiling painting
Palazzo Buonaccorsi, Macerata

Louisa Anne, Marchioness of Waterford
Putti with Peacocks
before 1891
watercolor on paper
(illustrating poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
British Museum

from Dream-Pedlary

If there are ghosts to raise,

        What shall I call,

Out of hell's murky haze,

        Heaven's blue hall?          

– Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Death's Jest-Book (1828)