The Sacrifice Of Iphigenia – Italian School Of The 18th Century

Pen and brown ink on laid paper.
On a promontory surrounded by vegetation, a priest brandishes a dagger which he is about to plant in the chest of a young woman. In front of a crowd of soldiers and weeping priestesses, two divinities preside over the sacrifice: Artemis, goddess of wild nature and hunting, installed in a crescent moon and accompanied by a deer, and Hecate, goddess of spells and guide of souls of the dead, represented crowned between two columns. In the tumult, one seems to hear the players of Aulos (double flute), all cheeks puffed out in the background, still officiating at the sacrificial ceremonies. Our drawing, probably a study for a ceiling project (this one inserted between four arcs at the corners), depicts with great theatricality the most famous human sacrifice in Greek mythology, that of Iphigenia. This episode, recounted in Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides and in The Metamorphoses by Ovid, could be summarized as follows: Menelaus, king of Sparta, forces all the Greek kings to help him regain his wife, Helen, kidnapped by Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy. And it is Agamemnon, his brother and king of Mycenae, who is designated by the coalition of Greek kings to lead the war against the city of Troy. But when he launched the fleet assembled at Aulis, the winds were unfavorable. Calchas the soothsayer then reveals that an offense committed by Agamemnon against Artemis is the cause, and that only the death of his daughter Iphigenia will appease the anger of the goddess. At first, the king of Mycenae refuses the horrible sacrifice, but pushed by Menelaus and Ulysses, he resigns to it. When the day comes, at the fateful moment, Artemis takes pity on the young princess and replaces her with a doe. The tragic fate of young Iphigenia has inspired numerous painters and sculptors since Antiquity. And as the Franco-German archaeologist Lilly Kahil affirmed, "the character of Iphigenia is one of those who most fascinated the authors of antiquity and the modern era... fascinated by the theme of sacrifice and especially human sacrifice. »

Our drawing is presented under a mat and anti-reflective glass in a frame with Bérain-style decoration.
Dimensions: 22 x 38 cm – 41 x 57 cm with frame