Ulysses Entering Troy with the Death of Astyanax

This expressive, vigorously drawn composition entered The Met's collection in 1998 with an attribution to the French artist, Antoine François Callet (Paris 1741–1823 Paris), but more recent research suggests it is more likely by his close contemporary, Giuseppe Piattoli the Younger (1743 - 1823), a Florentine painter, draftsman, and printmaker whose precise life dates have often been overlooked. The attribution to Piattoli is due to Nicolas Swed (8/17/2026). As seen in The Met's composition, Piattoli's artistic vocabulary at times drew from his French and Italian predecessors and near contemporaries for his graphic style.

Datable to the mid 1780s to late 1790s on the basis of style, this drawing seems to have been part of a series illustrating events from the Trojan War done by the artist. Here, Troy has fallen, and Ulysses (on horseback) has entered the burning city, ordering the death of Hector's infant son, Astyanax, who is thrown from a circular, temple-like building in the distance.

Giuseppe Piattoli the Younger taught drawing at the Accademia del Disegno in Florence from 1785 to 1807, and produced mythological and biblical subjects, many composed as battle scenes as seen in The Met's sheet. He developed similarly expressive compositions, even for entirely different subjects, in drawings in pen and brown ink with wash. Among many other examples, we may single out a battle scene in the University of Michigan Museum of Art (inv. 1970/2.40), two further battle scenes, now in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence (inv. nos. 11348S and 11349S), as well as The Death of Jezebel, formerly in the Jeffrey E. Horvitz Collection (sold at auction, Sotheby's, New York, 1/23/2008, lot 104). Piattoli authored satires, genre scenes, and two series on proverbs (the "Proverbi") in his collaborations with printmakers and publishers.

Named Giuseppe after his grandfather, Piattoli the Younger had descended from a family of artists who were mainly active in Florence. His father, Gaetano Piattoli (Ferrara 1703 - Rome 1774), was best known there as a specialist of portraits. His mother, Anna Baccherini Piattoli (Florence 1720 - 1780 Florence), excelled as a painter of portrait miniatures and pastels. Their son and Giuseppe's the Younger's brother, Scipione Piattoli (Florence 1749 - 1809 Altenburg), a university professor, political activist and writer, was a celebrated figure of the Enlightenment in Poland. (CCB)