John Gibson RA, Ulysses forcing Polyxena from Hecuba to be sacrificed.
Pen and brown ink on wove paper. 176 mm x 315 mm. © Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London.
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Ulysses forcing Polyxena from Hecuba to be sacrificed
John Gibson RA (1790 - 1866)
RA Collection: Art
A pen and ink drawing of 'Ulysses forcing Polyxena from Hecuba to be sacrificed'. Ulysses is depicted on the left holding a staff in his right hand and holding Polyxena by the wrist. Polyxena leans away from him towards her mother Hecuba, Queen of Troy, who is viewed in profile with her hand outstretched to Ulysses.
This story is related by Euripides in his plays >Hecuba and The Trojan Women in which the Greek hero Ulysses (or Odysseus) takes Polyxena, a Trojan princess, to be sacrificed to appease the ghost of Achilles who had been killed by her brothers.
Gibson's drawing was engraved and published in Imitations of Drawings by John Gibson , R.A. Sculptor, Engraved by G. Wenzel and L. Prosseda, Plate 36.
Object details
176 mm x 315 mm
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