So, I can't think of a painting that specifically does this! But I can think of plenty of paintings that are working in veins /kind of like/ this.

(1/) https://twitter.com/spiderfoods/status/1305366234763010048

A painting in the western tradition generally exists on a spectrum: some paintings are meant to be read as literal depictions of things, some are meant to be read allegorically.

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Look at paintings enough, and you start to develop a sense for things. This Titian portrait is def on the literal side of things, that's a very specific young man--but wait, those gloves represent something about this man's, and a man's, relationship to the outside world.

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So let's get back to OP, and look at an allegorical painting. Charles Gleyre's "Lost Illusions". So OK, we have that information going in--on a little brass plaque on the frame perhaps--but I think we could figure it out anyway.

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First of all, it's not an accident that, despite being set in a landscape, this painting is no place in particular. That's one clue we should read it as an allegory--having, IDK, London Bridge in the background would tell us the opposite.

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Similarly, the fact the outfits are of no particular time or place, made of no particular cloth. And the faces--these aren't individual people, portrait commissioners or models or whatever, they all represent Types. We're very firmly in Allegory Land.

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The composition makes us look at these two male figures, and doesn't let us prioritize one--we're meant to compare. And we recognize them both as Types, in this case Youth and Late Adulthood.

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I'd almost be tempted to read it as a Prodigal-Son-like situation, the figures representing Father and Son. But that's not right: this is certainly a young man enjoying himself, surrounded by beautiful women, but...

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The boy is reading from a scroll. The women carry attributes of art, literature, wisdom, victory. He's not living in dissipation, and it would make no sense for his father to be watching him in despair.

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The male figures, of course, represent one person, who, as an adult, has put down his lyre. That ship has sailed into the dusk, those birds have flown, the waning moon has almost vanished from the sky.

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Did we read this putti as strewing flowers in celebration? Nah man, he's tearing apart a wreath; gather your rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying, and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.

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ANYWAY. Let's get back to OP! How /would/ you make a painting representing patience?

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Off the top of my head, I might choose a central figure depicted as Hercules, who often symbolically stands in for Fortitude, which is close enough for our purposes. Let's imagine he's sitting on a rock--he's covered it with his lion skin, has his club close at hand.

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(Those attributes, plus his build, are enough to identify him as Hercules.) He has his elbows resting on his knees, a comfortable posture for a long time, but his head is still up--alert.

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The background has more of a scene than the Gleyre, but we're careful to make it a non-specific scene. But we see palaces, courthouses, temples and fortresses, roads and bridges. All worn down and overgrown.

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Immense time must have passed. These grand places are empty, and time has almost erased them. The hollow stumps of thousand-year-old oaks break up a flagstoned parade yard, under a dim and swollen red sun.

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Anyway, that's the first thing that occurs to me. In any case, representing the abstract concept of Patience in painting is absolutely not impossible, and there's a whole language for doing exactly that sort of thing.

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Going back to the Gleyre, I note there are ten women. Nine of them are wreathed, playing an instrument, clapping time, or singing, and I imagine should be read as the Muses. I speculate one of them--seated, with her face fully invisible--is the wife he never met.

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