Telemachus, Believing that His Father, Ulysses, Is Dead, Searches for Him in the Underworld, from The Adventures of Telemachus, Book 18
Medium
Pen and black ink, with brush and brown and gray wash, over traces of black chalk on ivory laid paper, laid down on board
Dimensions
Sight: 48 × 59 cm (18 15/16 × 23 1/4 in.); Overall: 55.6 × 66.7 cm (21 15/16 × 26 5/16 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
17964
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In the last scene illustrated by Pinelli (book 18, of a total of 24), Telemachus steps onto the shores of Hades, land of the dead, after being ferried across the River Styx by Charon (seen in the background). Under Minerva’s protection, Telemachus has accomplished the feat granted to no mortal of descending to the underworld by entering the sulfurous cavern near the southern Italian city of Acherontia. In Hades, spirits of the dead and creatures of the night surround him. In search of his father...
About the Artist
Bartolomeo Pinelli · 1781–1835
Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781–1835) was an Italian artist and printmaker who became one of the most popular and prolific chroniclers of Roman popular life in the early nineteenth century. Born in Rome, he trained at the Accademia di San Luca and demonstrated precocious talent in drawing and sculpture, though it was as an engraver and illustrator that he found his true vocation and his widest audience. ...