Luxury-book publishing flourished in the years following the French Revolution. This design for an illustration in Pierre Didot the Elder’s 1798 edition of the works of Virgil depicts the death of Pallas, an episode in the Aeneid. The elderly Acoetës, who famously warned of the Trojan horse, grieves over the dead body, while Aeneas comforts Pallas’s son Iulus in the foreground. The composition is a clear homage to Andromache Mourning Hector (1783), a painting by Girodet’s teacher, Jacques Louis David. The sheet also showcases Girodet’s exquisite technique, evident here in the modeling of flesh, drapery, and armor as well as the ethereal effects of moonlight and smoke.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Open Access
As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.
API
Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title:The Mourning of Pallas
Artist:Anne Louis Girodet-Trioson (French, Montargis 1767–1824 Paris)
Date:ca. 1790–93
Medium:Pen and brown ink, brush and gray and brown wash, heightened with white
Dimensions:8 7/16 x 6 1/2 in. (21.5 x 16.5 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1996
Accession Number:1996.567
Inscription: Lower left, graphite: "Girodet inv."; lower center, brown ink: ". . . . HEI MIHI! QVANTVM PRAESIDIVM AVSONIA ET QVANTVM TV PERDIS, IVLE!"; and in graphite at lower right: "Eneide Liv. XI"
Pierre Didot l'ainé (French); Firmin Didot (French)offered at his sale, 1810 (Catalogue des livres. . . .lot 488) but failed to meet its reserve, about 1814; Coutant-Schubert collection; Pascal Berquat , sale, Marseille, September 29, 1996, lot 153; Vendor: Katrin Bellinger Kunsthandel , Munich
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," April 11–June 25, 2000.
Paris. Musée du Louvre. "Girodet: 1767–1824," September 22, 2005–January 2, 2006.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Girodet: 1767–1824," February 11–April 30, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Girodet: Romantic Rebel," May 24–August 27, 2006.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. "Girodet: 1767–1824," October 12, 2006–January 21, 2007.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," January 11–April 11, 2010.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "In the Orbit of Jacques Louis David: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints," January 20–May 31, 2022.
Alastair Laing "New York French eighteenth-century drawings." Burlington Magazine. vol. 141, no. 1155, London, June 1999, p. 379.
Carmen C. Bambach, Colta Ives, Perrin Stein, Nadine Orenstein "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1998-1999." in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 57, no. 2, Autumn 1999, p. 39, ill.
Perrin Stein, Mary Tavener Holmes Eighteenth-Century French Drawings in New York Collections Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1999, cat. no. 91, pp. 210-213, ill.
Sylvain Bellenger Girodet (1767-1824). Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris, Sept. 22, 2005-Jan. 2, 2006 ; Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 11-Apr. 30, 2006 ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 22-Aug. 27, 2006 ; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Oct. 12, 2006-Jan. 21, 2007. Paris, 2006, cat. no. 107, pp. 437-438, 451, ill.
Sylvain Bellenger Anne-Louis Girodet. Galerie de Bayser, Paris, Cahiers du dessin français, no. 14, 2009, cat. no. 10, p. 13, ill.
Louis-Antoine Prat Le Dessin français au XIXe siècle. Somogy Editions d'Art, Paris, 2011, fig. no. 146, 76-77, ill.
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.
