Monday, April 23, 2018

Cut Flowers and other Domestic Objects from the Past

Antoine Chazal
Roses in a Vase
1845
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Rachel Ruysch
A Spray of Flowers
before 1750
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Henri Fantin-Latour
White Cup and Saucer
1864
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Henri Fantin-Latour
White Candlestick
1870
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Nick and the Candlestick

I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears

The earthen womb
Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs

Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.

Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,

Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish –
Christ! they are panes of ice,

A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking

Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,

Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo

Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean

In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.

Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses,
With soft rugs –

The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address.

Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,

You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.

– Sylvia Plath (1962)

Auguste Renoir
Apples and Teacup
before 1919
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Auguste Renoir
Apples and Walnuts
before 1919
oil on panel (cigar-box lid)
(formerly owned by Edith Wharton)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Antonio Salviati
Small Rose-colored Vase
ca. 1885-90
Venetian glass
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Anonymous Persian artisan
Bottle with Dropper Spout
ca. 1700-1800
cobalt glass
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Albert Godde Bedin et cie (Lyon)
Endleaf from fashion magazine Art Goût Beauté
1932
design for printed crêpe de chine
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Ethel Sands
Still-life with a view over a cemetery
before 1923
oil on panel
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Willem van Aelst
Group of Flowers
1675
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

C.W. Immink
Asters and Autumn Leaves in a Vase
before 1935
print from glass-plate negative
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Philip Reinagle
Lilium Superbum
before 1805
oil on canvas
(for engraved book illustration)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Jan Brueghel the Elder
Stoneware Vase of Flowers
ca. 1607-1608
oil on panel
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge