Symbolica
The Weeping Virgin, the Broken Column and Time

The Weeping Virgin, the Broken Column and Time

Death and the Skull as the central motif, with the Angel and the Wing, the Tree, and the Pillar in a secondary part. From Masonic Chart.

Jeremy L. Cross, compiler; engraved by Amos Doolittle, 1826 printing, first published 1819. Engraving.

No known copyright restrictions, 1826 printing · Web copy 1004 by 1400 px · Internet Archive, Library of Congress copy, leaf 38

What is happening

Symbolica, 2026 Plate 18 of the chart, in the Master Mason degree. Cross prints no lecture on this plate and no scripture is read against it. The absence was looked for rather than assumed: the whole of the Master Mason degree, pages 35 to 41 was read against the page images of the monitor, and Thomas Smith Webb's Freemason's Monitor of 1808, which Cross's chart illustrates, is silent in the same place. This is a part of the work that was never printed. The picture was published and the words that went with it were carried by mouth.

Key · 4 motifs

The motifs the picture carries, filed by role. The marks on the picture itself come with the entry.

  1. 1Death and the Skullcentral motif as it reads here: The Weeping Virgin, the Broken Column and Time
  2. 2The Angel and the Wingsecondary motif
  3. 3The Treesecondary motif
  4. 4The Pillarsecondary motif

The picture

A woman weeping over a broken column with an open book on it, a sprig in her hand and an urn beside her, while winged Time behind her holds a scythe and unfolds the ringlets of her hair. By eye

Not yet decoded: the key and the sourced notes come with the entry. Until then the motifs above are tagged by eye and said so.

Also carrying Death and the Skull

13 works carry it. The 6 where it is the central motif are here. The symbol.

Where the detail is the subject

the Angel and the Wing · the Tree · the Pillar

Each of these is in the picture without being what it is about. Below, one work that is about each.

In the same series

The True Masonic Chart, 1819

Record

Source
Internet Archive, Library of Congress copy, leaf 38
Rights
No known copyright. The book was printed in 1826 and the holding institution records no known copyright restriction on its copy.
Restoration
The Library of Congress copy was photographed flat: this plate reached the archive with neither a true black nor a true white, and the engraved hatching read as grey fog. One black and one white point were set for all three channels together, read off the plate's own darkest and lightest tones, which deepens the ink and leaves the paper the colour it is. The per-channel version of the same correction, used on the painted plates of 1928, was rejected here because on ink and paper it also neutralises the paper. Saturation untouched. The web copy is made from the archive's cut of the page, so the correction is never applied twice. Nothing coloured, painted, sharpened or upscaled. A 1004 by 1400 pixel web copy made from the source file; nothing painted, nothing upscaled.
Series
The True Masonic Chart, 1819
Artist
Jeremy L. Cross, masonic lecturer of New Hampshire and Connecticut, 1783 to 1860, who compiled the chart and its monitor; the plates were engraved by Amos Doolittle of New Haven
Titled here
The Weeping Virgin, the Broken Column and Time. Internet Archive catalogues it as: The Weeping Virgin, the Broken Column and Time, from The True Masonic Chart, New Haven 1826
Checked
the Internet Archive item metadata, 4 September 2026: Cross as author, New Haven, 1826, contributed by the Library of Congress, which states it is unaware of any copyright restrictions. Doolittle's signature is engraved on some plates and the attribution of the rest to him follows the book's own title. What is quoted was read off the plate; the monitor's lectures are quoted where the printed monitor carries them, read against the page images of pages 16, 17 and 38 to 41; where the monitor is silent the record says so. Not seen in the hand.
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Cite
Symbolica, “The Weeping Virgin, the Broken Column and Time”, Jeremy L. Cross, compiler; engraved by Amos Doolittle, 1826 printing, first published 1819. thesymbolica.com/work/the-weeping-virgin-the-broken-column-and-time/