| Maker(s): | Guérin, Pierre | | Culture: | French (1774 - 1833)
| | Title: | Clytemnestra Hesitating Before Stabbing the Sleeping Agamemnon
| | Date Made: | ca. 1817
| | Type: | Painting
| | Materials: | oil on canvas
| | Place Made: | France
| | Measurements: | stretcher: 30 x 33 1/2 in.; 76.2 x 85.09 cm
| | Narrative Inscription: | undated, signed with artist's monogram in black paint at lwoer left base of column: PG
| | Accession Number: | SC 1999.24
| | Credit Line: | Purchased with the Hillyer-Tryon-Mather fund and with funds realized from the sale of works given by Caroline R. Wing, class of 1896, Adeline F. Wing, class of 1898, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan D. Emil
| | Museum Collection: | Smith College Museum of Art
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Description:
overall red tint, woman, with man standing behind her, watching a sleeping man from outside doorway
Label Text:
Purchased with the Hillyer-Tryon-Mather Fund and with funds realized from the sale of works given by Caroline R. Wing, class of 1896, Adeline F. Wing, class of 1898, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan D. Emil
Queen Clytemnestra, dagger in hand, stalks her sleeping husband, King Agamemnon, who has returned from Troy with the victorious Greek army. Urged by her lover, Aegisthus, she is poised to avenge her daughter, Iphigenia, sacrificed by the king to induce the goddess Artemis to release his ships en route to Troy. This story of revenge and murder following the Trojan War is recounted in the Odyssey as well as other sources.
Painted when King Louis XVIII was restored to the throne, this painting is characteristic of Neoclassicism, when the Revolution (1789-99) and Napoleon’s First Empire (1791-1814) favored rational thought and imperialism. However, this painting also emphasizes an emotional encounter typical of Romanticism.
This work is a smaller version of Guérin’s monumental painting in the Louvre, which was first shown in the annual Paris Salon exhibition of 1817. It was common practice at the time to create reduced versions of popular paintings for the art market.
Subjects:
Canvas Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1999.24 |
