night-piecen.

1608 B. Jonson Masque of Blacknesse in Characters Two Royall Masques 89 The Scene behind seemed a vast Sea..To which was added an obscure and cloudy night-piece.

1612 J. Webster White Divel v. v. 299 I limn'd this night-piece [sc. the corpses of Vittoria, Flamineo, and Zanche].

1655 H. Vaughan Silex Scintillans (ed. 2) ii. 42 Some meek night-piece which day quails, To candle-light unveils.

1698 J. Norris Pract. Disc. Divine Subj. IV. 45 But I have drawn a sad, and black Night-piece of this already.

1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 83. ¶9 He had likewise hung a great Part of the Wall with Night-Pieces.

1762 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Painting II. iii. 110 Excelling particularly in night-pieces and candlelights.

1797 T. Holcroft tr. F. L. Stolberg Trav. II. li Christ before Caiaphas. A night piece.

c1850 tr. V. Hugo Hunchback Notre Dame i. iii Faces..which Rembrandt has brought out so grave and so expressive from the dark ground of his night-piece.

1882 W. Sharp et al. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 345 The five lines concluding the ninth verse..I have elsewhere compared to one of Millet's most successful ‘impressionist’ night-pieces.

1951 K. Clark Piero della Francesca 33 Night-pieces appear in manuscripts such as the Trés Riches Heures and Turin Hours early in the century, and by about 1450 it was usual in Flemish art to represent the Nativity lit by a torch or lantern.

1994 H. Bloom Western Canon ii. vii. 182 Both passages present the sublime of nihilistic power, associating aesthetic pride in the night piece one has limned with a sadomasochistic nostalgia for the integral greatness one has ruined.

1643 Sober Sadness 46 This plot was laid; and this designe in agitation (though it be a night-piece, which few have hitherto discover'd fully).

1646 J. Gregory Notes & Observ. xxii. 108 So the Tradition, and so the Masters describe the Night-peice of this Nativity.

1832 G. Downes Lett. from Continental Countries I. 54 The solitude..illumined by the bright and steady moon—I thought it the finest night-piece I had ever witnessed.

1648 R. Herrick Hesperides sig. R7^v (title of poem) The Night-piece, to Julia.

1668 E. Waller Poems (ed. 3) 231 (title) The Night-piece, or a Picture drawn in the dark.

a1718 T. Parnell Poems Several Occasions (title) A night-piece on death.

1753 J. Warton in C. Pitt tr. Virgil Æneid ix, in J. Warton et al. tr. Virgil Wks. IV. 26 (note) This is a beautiful military night-piece. Every thing is hush'd in sleep and silence, except the Trojans.

1815 W. Wordsworth Poems I. 301 (title) A night-piece.

1836 N. Amer. Rev. Oct. 353 As a specimen of a romantic ballad of the south of Greece, we give the following beautiful night-piece.

1882 E. Lazarus Songs of Semite 48 (note) The plot and incidents of this Tragedy are taken from a little narrative entitled ‘Der Tanz sum Tode; ein Nachtstück aus dem vierzehnten Jahrhundert’, (The Dance to Death—a Night-piece of the fourteenth century).

1925 E. Blunden Masks of Time 47 There were cadences and whispers In his ways that made my vespers, A night-piece fitting well that temple blue.

1995 L. Glück (title) Night piece.