Art Institute of Chicago

Achilles Restrained by Athena in Agamemnon's Tent, from Iliad, Book I

Johan Tobias Sergel

Date

1765/66

Medium

Black chalk on cream laid paper

Culture

Sweden

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This drawing by Sweden’s most important Neoclassical sculptor and draftsman depicts a scene from Homer’s Iliad , set during the Trojan War. 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. Enraged, Achilles draws his sword on Agamemnon, at which point Athena intervenes, as seen in the drawing.

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