Cleveland Museum of Art

Aristomenes Mourning the Death of Socrates from the Bewitchment of Meroë (from Book 1 of Apuleius, "The Golden Ass")

Antoine-Denis Chaudet

Date

1795

Medium

brush and black and gray wash, heightened with white gouache, over graphite

Culture

France, 18th century

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This scene represents the end of a complex episode from the Roman writer Apuleius's (2nd century ad) story The Golden Ass. Aristomenes narrates a tale to the book's main character, Lucius, about a friend named Socrates, whom he meets during his travels. After a disastrous affair with a witch named Meroë, Socrates dies from a wound she inflicts to his throat, and the scene shown here is the moment just after his death. Chaudet is mainly known as a sculptor, but he also designed a number of book illustrations for the most important publisher of the neoclassic period, the Didot firm. Although we know he did a number of drawings for The Golden Ass, the project was never realized as a book.

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