John Flaxman
English, 1755-1826
Amphion and Zethus Delivering their Mother Antiope from the Fury of Dirce and Lycus
INV-2172
John Flaxman
English, 1755-18261789
Amphion and Zethus Delivering their Mother Antiope from the Fury of Dirce and Lycus
John Flaxman English, 1755-1826 →drawings (visual works)prints and drawing
Date
1789
Medium
Pen and gray ink and brush and gray wash, over graphite, on gray laid paper, laid down on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Primary support: 16.1 × 29.2 cm (6 3/8 × 11 1/2 in.); Secondary support: 23.3 × 35.7 cm (9 3/16 × 14 1/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
A British sculptor and draughtsman who created figural designs for famed ceramicist Josiah Wedgwood, John Flaxman had a taste for the Neoclassical, which led him to Rome in 1787. While in the Eternal City, Flaxman produced this study for a nine-by-five-foot bas-relief using several references from ancient Roman sculpture. The drawing exhibits Flaxman’s signature elegance in figural outlines. However, Flaxman felt the project was inadequate to establish his reputation as a sculptor, so he abandoned it and later reused two of the figures from this drawing in a different context.
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