Idealized Portrait of the Poet Homer, 1639. The old man honored by a laurel wreath is Homer, the greatest poet of antiquity, identified by the inscription on the sheet of paper with the names of the cities that claimed Homer as a native. This imaginary portrait (no one knows what he looked like) is not so much a celebration of the author of the early Greek epic poems- The Iliad and The Odyssey- but of the fame that a poet could achieve.

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Size: 3987px × 4960px
Photo credit: © Heritage Images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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