Creusa Pleads with Aeneas as He Leaves for War
Medium
Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 22.6 × 15.5 cm (8 15/16 × 6 1/8 in.); Sheet: 32.2 × 23.1 cm (12 11/16 × 9 1/8 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
182927
Art Historical Context
In the poignant drawing *Creusa Pleads with Aeneas as He Leaves for War* (1803), French artist Jean-Michel Moreau captures a dramatic moment from Virgil's epic *Aeneid*. Here, Creusa, Aeneas's devoted wife, beseeches her husband not to depart for the Trojan War, embodying themes of love, duty, and impending tragedy amid the fall of Troy. Created during the Napoleonic era, when renewed fascination with classical antiquity fueled Neoclassicism, Moreau's work reflects the era's reverence for ancient Roman literature as a moral and heroic ideal. Executed in pen and brown ink with brush and brown ...