A Leak In The Safe

Artist Unknown

about 1650

Indianapolis Museum of Art

The more I run my eyes over the art

And skill of such portraiture,

The more I admire, & adore the Heavens

That realize this lovely Creature,

The perfection of whose every line

Stirs my imagination, & my mind:

And whoses color, as if drawn after life,

So burns me to the quick, I lose my wits.

What would I become then, seeing her alive?

Without doubt, like cinders, I’d fall to bits.

— Maurice Sceve/trans. Richard Sieburth