Altoon Sultan reflects on Piero di Cosimo’s A Satyr Mourning over a Nymph (c. 1495), seen on a recent trip to the National Gallery, London.

Sultan writes: “There I was, standing in front of this beautiful, tender, poignant painting, unable to stop weeping. It may be that my feelings were very close to the surface from seeing so many great paintings, but there was something in the emotional restraint, the simply rendered, clear form, the elongated horizontal format, the loving attention to flora and fauna, and the deep space opening out behind the three foreground figures, that was incredibly touching.”