Cleveland Museum of Art

Oedipus at Colonus

Fulchran Jean Harriet

Date

1798

Medium

oil on canvas

Culture

France, 18th century

Department

European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The ancient mythical Greek king Oedipus fulfilled his fate by unknowingly killing his father and marrying his mother. He subsequently blinded himself and was exiled. Here, Oedipus reprimands himself, while protecting his daughter Antigone. Oedipus became popular in France just after the French Revolution, since the subject addressed the return of exiles. The ancient Greek writer Sophocles provided the best-known version of the tragedy, but an interpretation that played in Paris in 1797 inspired Harriet’s work. Fulchran Jean Harriet died young at age 29, and less than 10 of his works survive today.

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