1765/66
Johan Tobias Sergel Swedish, 1740-1814
Sweden
This drawing by Sweden’s most important Neoclassical sculptor and draftsman depicts a scene from Homer’s Iliad, set during the Trojan War.
In the drawing, 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.
Black chalk on off-white laid paper, tipped onto wove paper