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Phaedre, Having Declared Her Passion, Attempts to Kill Herself with the Sword of Hippolytus

A work made of pen and brush and black and brown wash and graphite, heightened with white gouache on cream laid paper.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of pen and brush and black and brown wash and graphite, heightened with white gouache on cream laid paper.

Date:

c. 1801

Artist:

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson
French, 1767-1824

About this artwork

This drawing of a scene from the tragedy Phaedra was for a deluxe edition of the plays of the French dramatist Jean Racine (1639–1699) illustrated by Jacques-Louis David’s pupil Girodet. The moment depicted is Phaedra’s attempted suicide after her stepson, Hippolytus, rejects her amorous advances. About his drawings for the plays of Racine, Girodet wrote: “It is wrong that drawings are seen as mere drawings; they demand the same conception and almost as much study as a painting.”

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson

Title

Phaedre, Having Declared Her Passion, Attempts to Kill Herself with the Sword of Hippolytus

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1796–1806

Medium

Pen and brush and black and brown wash and graphite, heightened with white gouache on cream laid paper

Dimensions

34.5 × 24.2 cm (13 5/8 × 9 9/16 in.)

Credit Line

Major Acquisitions Centennial Endowment

Reference Number

1997.303

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/147061/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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