Aeneas Rescuing Anchises from Burning Troy
Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
22.6 × 31.5 cm (8 7/8 × 12 3/8 in.); Framed: 29.6 × 38.5 × 6.1 cm (11 5/8 × 15 1/8 × 2 3/8 in.)
Classification
oil on panel
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
88619
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Anchises, former lover of the goddess Aphrodite, is here shown as an old man asleep in bed. In the background at right, seemingly disconnected from the quiet bedchamber, his home city of Troy burns. In this rendition of the Classical story, Hendrick van Steenwijck drops the viewer into a moment of suspended action as Anchises’s demigod son, Trojan hero Aeneas, rushes in to save his father and carry him to safety. Throughout, Steenwijck emphasizes contrasts between father and son: age and youth, ...