Amphion and Zethus Delivering their Mother Antiope from the Fury of Dirce and Lycus

Prints and Drawings

1789

John Flaxman
English, 1755-1826

A British sculptor and draughtsman who created figural designs for famed ceramicist Josiah Wedgwood, John Flaxman had a taste for the Neoclassical, which led him to Rome in 1787. While in the Eternal City, Flaxman produced this study for a nine-by-five-foot bas-relief using several references from ancient Roman sculpture. The drawing exhibits Flaxman’s signature elegance in figural outlines. However, Flaxman felt the project was inadequate to establish his reputation as a sculptor, so he abandoned it and later reused two of the figures from this drawing in a different context.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: John Flaxman
Title: Amphion and Zethus Delivering their Mother Antiope from the Fury of Dirce and Lycus
Place: England (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.: 1789
Medium: Pen and gray ink and brush and gray wash, over graphite, on gray laid paper, laid down on ivory wove paper
Inscriptions: Signed, inscribed, and dated lower left, in pen and gray-brown ink: "Flaxman, Roma 1789"
Dimensions: Primary support: 16.1 × 29.2 cm (6 3/8 × 11 1/2 in.); Secondary support: 23.3 × 35.7 cm (9 3/16 × 14 1/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 2013.939
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/217215/manifest.json

Lowell Lisbon Limited, British Paintings and Works on Paper 2013, (London 2013) p. 41.

Art Institute of Chicago, “The Thrill of the Chase: Drawings for the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection,” Mar. 15-June 15, 2014, no cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Shockingly Mad: Henry Fuseli and the Art of Drawing,” Nov. 16, 2017-Apr. 1, 2018, no cat.

Private collection, New York, to 2012. Sold by Lowell Libson, London, to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, Brookline, MA, Nov. 2012; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

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Amphion and Zethus Delivering their Mother Antiope from the Fury of Dirce and Lycus

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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.

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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.

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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.