Chryses Imploring the Help of Apollo, from Iliad, Book I
1765/66
Medium
Black chalk on off-white laid paper, tipped onto wove paper
Dimensions
43.3 × 34.8 cm (17 1/16 × 13 3/4 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
241156
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This drawing by Sweden’s most important Neoclassical sculptor and draftsman depicts a scene from Homer’s Iliad, set during the Trojan War. In the drawing, Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, prays to Apollo for help after Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army, has refused to return his kidnapped daughter. In response, Apollo inflicts a plague upon the Greeks. Agamemnon returns Chryses’s daughter, but demands Chryses’s second kidnapped daughter, who is held by Achilles, in exchange.