Martorana Church, Palermo (Italy). 

Norman-Arab-Byzantine architecture.

(Photo: Andrew and Suzanne on flickr)

Happy Monday! Here are three Aztec stone snakes for you. The greenish one (13th-16th century) is from the Cleveland Museum of Art and the other two (15th-early 16th century) are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, two open access collections on JSTOR.

“The Lady Deerings Composing”

Recently on display for a music history class was the 1659 printing of Select ayres and dialogues for one, two, and three voyces: to the theorbo-lute or basse-viol, part of Oberlin’s Frederick R. Selch Collection of American Music History. The title page lists composers John Wilson, Charles Colman, Henry Lawes, William Lawes, Nicholas Laneare, William Webb, and “other excellent masters of musick.” Among those other masters is Lady Mary Dering (née Harvey, 1629–1704), whose composition, “In vain fair Chloris, you design, to be cruel, to be kind,” is on page 9, and is an early printing of the first music published in England to credit a woman composer. Dering’s work first appeared in a 1655 edition of the second book of Ayres and Dialogues by Henry Lawes, who included three of her songs and dedicated the book to her.

View this and many other books from the Oberlin Conservatory Library’s Special Collections online at the Internet Archive.

Mosaics in nymphaeuma at Herculaneum.

Black and white geometric mosaic, Villa Adriana, Tivoli.

Warrior Ornaments, 6th–7th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979 Size: H. 1 ¼ x W. 1 1/8 in. (3.2 x 2.8 cm) Medium: Gold

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/318637

‘Insect’ and Butterfly Sign, Panel of Red Signs, Bear Hollow Chamber, Chauvet cave

Aurignacian, 32,000 ybp

Saint Catherine of Alexandria (detail)

Carlo Crivelli

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) | dir. Céline Sciamma

John Keats, from a letter to Fanny Brawne

Naomi / DIOR 1997

Parthian (Persian) spout in the shape of a man’s head, 1st-2nd century CE. The  man’s beard was originally made up of sparkling fool’s gold (iron pyrite), but it has mostly been removed.

{WHF} {HTE} {Medium}

Magic Wand, ca. 1900–1640 B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art: Egyptian Art

Rogers Fund and Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1922 Size: a): L. 26.9 × W. 4.9 × H. 9.6 × Th. 1.1 cm (10 9/16 × 1 15/16 × 3 ¾ × 7/16 in.); b): L. 4.4 × W. 4 × Th. 0.7 cm (1 ¾ × 1 9/16 × ¼ in.) Medium: Hippopotamus ivory

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544244

Harp Lyre, mid-19th century, Musical Instruments

The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889 Size: Total length 75.5 cm., Soundbox length (right/ center/ left: 31.2/ 27.9/ 30/1 cm., Body width (base/ top of soundbox/ top): 44.5/ 33.5/ 25.5 cm., Body depth (top/ top of soundbox/ foot): 5.1/ 10.5/ 11.5 cm., vibrating length of strings 59.5-31.5, Bridge height (bottom) 2.2 cm. Medium: Wood, metal

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/501657

Madonna and Child, Antonio Rossellino, c. 1470, Cleveland Museum of Art: European Painting and Sculpture

This relief is one of several such painted stucco replicas cast after the marble original of about 1460-1465 now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. While this example has suffered old and obvious losses, it still conveys the overall composition and some of the subtlety of modelling of the marble. In addition, it retains sufficient portions of its fifteenth-century paint and gilding to suggest a colorfulness and richly decorated surface which the marble was never intended to have, and which connects this work with panel paintings of the time. The gilded wooden frame, not made for this relief, is Venetian and dates to about 1400-1450. Size: Overall: 83.5 x 65.1 cm (32 7/8 x 25 5/8 in.) Medium: painted stucco with traces of gilding

https://clevelandart.org/art/1970.44

Madonna della Misericordia, 1482

Bartolomeo Caporali, 1420-1503/1505

Museo Civico di Montone