Hermione Rejecting Orestes

Description

Girodet was one of the star pupils of Jacques Louis David. As a young man, he supported himself by making drawings as book illustrations. For the deluxe three-volume edition of the works of Jean Racine, published in 1801, Girodet provided drawings for Phaedra and Andromaque. This sheet is a preparatory work for the latter; it is the scene in which Hermione spurns Orestes after he has killed Pyrrhus at her request.

Hermione Rejecting Orestes

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson

c. 1799

Accession Number

105468

Medium

Pen and black ink and black chalk, with stumping, and brush and brown and gray wash, heightened with white gouache, on ivory laid paper

Dimensions

26.3 × 32.3 cm (10 3/8 × 12 3/4 in.)

Classification

pen and ink drawings

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Margaret Day Blake Collection