Art Institute of Chicago

Amphion and Zethus Delivering their Mother Antiope from the Fury of Dirce and Lycus

John Flaxman

Date

1789

Medium

Pen and gray ink and brush and gray wash, over graphite, on gray laid paper, laid down on ivory wove paper

Culture

England

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

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 abandoned it and later reused two of the figures from this drawing in a different context.

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