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| Fritz von Uhde The Busy Family ca. 1885 oil on paper, mounted on panel Rhode Island School of Design, Providence |
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| Hans Thoma The Siblings 1873 oil on canvas Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe |
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| Édouard Vuillard Interior with Women 1902 oil on paper, mounted on panel Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh |
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| James McNeill Whistler The Music Room ca. 1880 etching and drypoint Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Ewald Thiel In the Study Room of the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett ca. 1900 autotype (carbon print) Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Auguste-Antoine Masse Interior of the Studio of Antoine-Jean Gros 1824 oil on canvas Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris |
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| Ernest Meissonier Chess Players 1856 oil on panel Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Lawrence Alma-Tadema Comparison 1892 oil on canvas Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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| Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki La Couture 1781 etching Museum Folkwang, Essen |
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| Abraham Delfos after Abraham de Strij The Scholars 1798 watercolor Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| John Doyle Vacation Amusements No. 4 - Celebrating the Fine Arts (Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Lord Melbourne drawing and painting, supervised by an instructor) 1840 hand-colored lithograph Wellcome Collection London |
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| Joseph-François Ducq Couple Studying Prints ca. 1800-1805 oil on canvas Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Henry Ericsson The Fazer Bar 1931 oil on canvas Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Achilles bandaging the wounded arm of Patroclus kylix 500 BC painted terracotta Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Woman handling Jewels from a Casket held by a Slave grave stele 410-400 BC marble relief National Archaeological Museum, Athens |
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| Wolfgang Heimbach Gentlemen in a Studiolo working by Candlelight cs. 1645 oil on canvas Galleria Borghese, Rome |
The Mermaid (from The Sea Cabinet)
Between the imaginary iceberg and the skeletal whale
is the stuffed and mounted mermaid in her case,
is the stuffed and mounted mermaid in her case,
the crudely-stitched seam between skin and scale
so unlike Herbert Draper's siren dreams, loose
on the swelling tide, part virgin and part harpy.*
Her post-mortem hair and her terrible face
*Herbert Draper - sentimental Victorian illustrator of classical myths
Her post-mortem hair and her terrible face
look more like P.T. Barnum's Freak of Feejee,
piscene and wordless, trapped in the net of a stare.
piscene and wordless, trapped in the net of a stare.
She has the head and shrivelled tits of a monkey,
the green glass eyes of a porcelain doll, a pair
of praying-mantis hands, and fishy lips
open to reveal her sea-caved mouth, her rare
ivory mermaid-teeth. Children breathe and rap
on the glass to make her move. In her fixity
she's as far as can be from the selkie who slips
she's as far as can be from the selkie who slips
her wet pelt on the beaches of Orkney
and walks as a woman, pupils widened in light,
discarding the stuffed sack of her body.
Without hearing, or touch, or taste, or smell, or sight
she echoes the numb roll of the whale
she echoes the numb roll of the whale
in a sea congealed with cold, when it was thought
no beast could be as nerveless as the whale.
– Caitríona O'Reilly (2005)
*Herbert Draper - sentimental Victorian illustrator of classical myths
