Amphion and Zethus Delivering their Mother Antiope from the Fury of Dirce and Lycus
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.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
217215
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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 abandon...
About the Artist
John Flaxman · 1755–1826
John Flaxman (1755–1826) was born in York, England, the son of John Flaxman Sr., a moulder and seller of plaster casts who ran a studio in London's Covent Garden. Largely self-taught amid his father's stock of classical casts, with minimal formal schooling due to childhood illness, Flaxman displayed prodigious talent early on. At age 12, he won a Society of Arts prize for a medallion; by 15, anoth...