Menelaus and Patroclus, after the Antique (recto and verso)
Henry Fuseli Swiss
Not on view
Fuseli here shows the Greek king Menelaus mourning a fallen fellow warrior, basing the image on a Roman sculpture preserved in Florence in the Loggia dei Lanzi—the artist visited the city in 1770 on his way to Rome and again on his way north in 1778. During this long Italian sojourn, Fuseli regularly mined history and poetry for dramatic subjects, and devised poses inspired by classical and Renaissance art. Here, he altered his sculptural source to accentuate the tragic death of a young Greek in battle with the Trojan prince Hector—an encounter described in Homer’s "Illiad."
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