The Poet and Muse diptych is a Late Antique ivory diptych that appears to commemorate, and to flatter, the literary pursuits of the aristocrat who commissioned it, so that it stands somewhat apart from the consular diptychs that were carved for distribution to friends and patrons when a man assumed the consular dignity during the later Roman Empire.[1] The original inscription in this example, unusually,[2] will have been carried out on the borders of the reverse side, which was infilled with a layer of wax for writing on, the ivory diptych being a very grand example of a wax tablet; the inscription has not survived, so there can be no way to identify the writer for whom it was made. In the literature that has accumulated about this diptych, various prominent figures have been offered as candidates: Ausonius, Boethius, and Claudian,[3] and even earlier figures, like Ennius and Seneca, with whom the donor wished to be associated[4]
The muse represented is Erato, muse of lyric poetry, with her usual attribute, the cithara, which she rests upon an ornately fluted column. The poet on the facing panel is seated, roused from his contemplation by the inspiring presence of his Muse. His writings, a scroll and writing tablets or small codices, lie scattered at his feet. His face is carefully characterized as a portrait,[5] a man of middle age, balding, his features furrowed in thought. The classicizing realism and the iconographic situation, and the complete absence of any Christian symbolism whatsoever — Christian authors write under the inspiration of angels — combine to suggest a man who has been schooled in the pagan tradition, which no longer led to the traditional public cursus honorum, however, by the 5th century, and would instead have implied a man who was living secluded from public life, which had become resolutely Christian.[6] W.F. Volbach characterized this as a "private" diptych, with the implication of a limited public, perhaps even retained by its patron;[7] Delbrueck held it apart from the consular diptychs he published[8] and published it separately, noting that it was difficult to ascertain the purpose and occasion for its facture.[9]
The diptych is conserved in the Treasury of the Duomo of Monza, near Milan.
^The Poet and Muse diptych was briefly discussed and illustrated (p. 18, fig. 10) in Kathleen J. Shelton, "The Consular Muse of Flavius Constantius" The Art Bulletin65.1 (March 1983), pp. 7-23.
^In the ordinary layout the inscription runs unbroken, from left to right across the raised top framing of both leaves legible when the diptych was fully opened.
^Identifications with the court poet Claudian involve moving the date of this diptych impossibly far back in time, to ca 400 CE, inconsonant with its artistic style.
^Shelton 1983, p. 18 note 52.
^The delineation of the particularity of his features is a pagan, not a Christian concern; "The whole temper of the new religion was opposed to anything in the nature of an image or idol: its aim was to represent ideas, not isolated figures", succinctly observes Serdar Hizli, "The Constantinian Basilicas - Sculpture".
^The Theodosian decrees of 391 had closed the temples and criminalized pagan acts of piety. The Neoplatonic Academy was closed by order of Justinian in 529 CE: see End of Hellenic Religion.
^W.F. Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters, 3rd ed. (Mainz) 1976, cat. no 68.
The PoetandMusediptych is a Late Antique ivory diptych that appears to commemorate, and to flatter, the literary pursuits of the aristocrat who commissioned...
new consul to friends and followers. Others may have been made to celebrate a wedding, or, perhaps like the PoetandMusediptych at Monza, simply commissioned...
Cathedral, with the Iron Crown of Lombardy, the Late Antique ivory PoetandMusediptych, of about 500, as well as several of the small metal 6th century...
Lombardy, and the Late Antique ivory PoetandMusediptych, of about 500, as well as an internationally important collection of late antique and early medieval...
(strictly only on deposit there initially), the Late Antique PoetandMusediptych, a Gospel book and the collection of ampullae. An early inventory survives...
Säfström's theory and sees "Mother of Muses" as part of a diptych of songs, along with "My Own Version of You", that explicitly explore the "myth and mystery of...
a Haitian-born actress and dancer of mixed French and West African ancestry. For 20 years, she was the muse of French poetand art critic Charles Baudelaire...
Wilton Diptych (National Gallery, London), which is the earliest authentic contemporary portrait of an English king, Richard II wears a gold and enamelled...
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of...
her role to that of other famous muses for Russian poets: "As Pushkin would not be complete without Anna Kern, and Yesenin would be nothing without Isadora...
Mark Strand included a poetic diptych called "Two de Chiricos": "The Philosopher's Conquest" and "The Disquieting Muses". Gabriele Tinti composed three...
Weekly. Retrieved June 5, 2020. At first, album-opening rocker and undeclared diptych "Pattern Recognition" reads like more of the same new thing. Sneaky...
the picture appears in Mazarin's inventory of 1653 as Apollo with a Museand a Poet crowned with Laurels. Its warm colouring reveals the Titianesque strain...
Alexandros, and associated the sculptor with a poet Alexandros, also from the Maeander region, who is named on an inscription from the Valley of the Muses at Thespiae...
Circe and the events before the voyage undertaken in the first canto and unfolds as a hymn to natural fertility and ritual sex. Canto XL is a diptych: the...
into 36' in two diptychs coincides with constructivist ideas and theoretical discussions on the expressive power of monochromatic moods and moorings created...
Liberté guidant le peuple de Delacroix. Paris: Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux. ISBN 978-2-7118-0222-7. Pool 1969, p.33. Part 3, Liberty Leading...
Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and Chrissie Hynde. Beginning in 2010, many of Sperry's prints have featured images of female muses from Greek mythology. Chuck...
that Sonnet 9 and Sonnet 10 form a diptych, even though the form of linkage is different from the case of Sonnets 5 and 6 or Sonnets 15 and 16. Sonnet 9...
The Louvre Pyramid (French: Pyramide du Louvre) is a large glass-and-metal structure designed by the Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei. The pyramid...
"Musée du Louvre, Les Sculptures grecques t. II". Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux. Paris: 27–40. Hamiaux, Marianne (2001). "La Victoire de Samothrace :...
intersection of two main underground walkways beneath the Place du Carrousel and orients visitors towards the museum entrance under the Cour Napoléon. Tensioned...
branches, wire, cloth, string and wood scraps, which he says formally relates to Jan van Eyck's Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych. In the early 1980s, Tuttle...
through. Famous examples include The Marilyn Diptych by Andy Warhol (modifies colors and styles of one image), and The Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso, (merges...
the plural ("les musées du Louvre") rather than singular.[citation needed] During the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830), Louis XVIII and Charles X added...
Calligrapher, Painter & Poet | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-08-07. Sturman, Peter Charles (1997). Mi Fu: style and the art of calligraphy...
Jean Habert, "Le Louvre raconte son histoire", La Revue du Louvre et des musées de France, vol. 2, 1989, p. 34 (French) Roger Hahn, "Quelques nouveaux documents...
Retrieved 18 July 2018. Rosenblum, Robert (1999). "Ingres's Portraits and their Muses". In Tinterow, Gary; Conisbee, Philip (eds.). Portraits by Ingres:...