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Erastus Dow Palmer
Erastus Dow Palmer 1817-1904, American sculptor, b. Pompey, N.Y., self-taught. A carpenter in his youth, he spent his leisure time cutting cameos. He progressed to carving bas-reliefs and then figures in the round, sculpted to conform with the classical ideal. His first full-length figure, The Ind...
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Jan Vermeer
Jan Vermeer , 1632-75, Dutch genre and landscape painter. He was born in Delft, where he spent his entire life. He was also known as Vermeer of Delft and as Jan or Johannes van der Meer. Carel Fabritius is presumed to have influenced him greatly. In 1653 he was admitted to the painters' guild, of ...
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Balthus
Balthus (Count Balthasar Klossowski de Rola) , 1908-2001, Polish-French painter, b. Paris. Balthus is widely regarded as one of the most important figurative painters of the modern era. He began painting as a young man and had his first one-man show in 1934. Balthus soon developed a distinctive st...
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Rahab
Rahab , in the Bible. 1 Prostitute of Jericho whose protection of Joshua's two spies saved her and her family from destruction. She may be the same woman mentioned in the Gospel genealogy as Rachab. 2 Dragonlike monster that figures in the mythic primordial battle between God and the sea monster...
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Momus
Momus , figure in Greek mythology. He was the personification of censure and mockery.
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Greenback party
Greenback party in U.S. history, political organization formed in the years 1874-76 to promote currency expansion. The members were principally farmers of the West and the South; stricken by the Panic of 1873, they saw salvation in an inflated currency that would wipe out the farm debts contracted ...
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Greenback party
Greenback party in U.S. history, political organization formed in the years 1874-76 to promote currency expansion. The members were principally farmers of the West and the South; stricken by the Panic of 1873, they saw salvation in an inflated currency that would wipe out the farm debts contracted ...
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sphinx
sphinx , mythical beast of ancient Egypt, frequently symbolizing the pharaoh as an incarnation of the sun god Ra . The sphinx was represented in sculpture usually in a recumbent position with the head of a man and the body of a lion, although some were constructed with rams' heads and others with h...
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Antenor
Antenor , fl. last half of 6th cent. BC, Greek sculptor who executed the bronze statues of the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogiton. In 480 BC, Xerxes carried these statues away from Athens, but they were discovered later at Susa by Alexander and sent back. A marble figure of a woman, signed on th...
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Aspasia
Aspasia , fl. mid-5th cent. BC, Athenian courtesan. A woman of great beauty and intelligence, she became the mistress and, according to some poets, adviser of Pericles after he divorced (445 BC) his wife. She is the chief figure in Aspasia, a dialogue by Aeschines the Socratic, in which she crit...
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