Four Little Combats: Achilles and Hector

Closely related to Sebald Beham German

before 1573

Not on view

Engraving, part of a set of four small, rectangular prints with black backgrounds, depicting combat scenes, likely influenced by German masters, particularly the Beham brothers. This print, first of the series, depicts a combat between Hector, on the center-left, and Achilles, on the right. The two heroes fight riding horses, surrounded by soldiers on foot. Delaune seems to have borrowed, in this print, from the Medieval tradition that highlighted Hector's belonging to the "nine knights," endowed with chivalrious qualities so highly appreciated in the Middle Ages, by representing him almost at the center of the print, while leaving Achilles on a second plane, and illustrating several barbarian men attacking him with uncivilized arms: a horse's jaw, a skull and a torch. This print is also closely related to a print of the same subject, of similar dimentsions, by Hans Sebald Beham.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Catalogue Raisonné

Title: Four Little Combats: Achilles and Hector
Artist: Etienne Delaune (French, Orléans 1518/19–1583 Strasbourg)
Artist: Closely related to Sebald Beham (German, Nuremberg 1500–1550 Frankfurt)
Date: before 1573
Medium: Engraving: first state
Dimensions: Sheet (trimmed): 1 3/8 × 3 9/16 in. (3.5 × 9 cm)
Image: 1 1/16 × 3 1/4 in. (2.7 × 8.2 cm)
Classifications: Prints, Ornament & Architecture
Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1926
Object Number: 26.50.7
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

By Etienne Delaune

By Sebald Beham

In the same medium

Four Little Combats: Pyrrhus and Troilus

Etienne Delaune

Closely related to Sebald Beham

before 1573

Four Little Combats: Hannibal and Scipio

Etienne Delaune

Closely related to Sebald Beham

before 1573

Four Little Combats: Children

Etienne Delaune

before 1573

Scrapbook of Drawings and Prints, Gideon Saint British, Pen and ink, engraving and etching — Scrapbook of Drawings and Prints
Gideon Saint
ca. 1760

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