Chryses Imploring the Help of Apollo, from Iliad, Book I

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

This drawing by Sweden’s most important Neoclassical sculptor and draftsman depicts a scene from Homer’s Iliad , set during the Trojan War. In the drawing, Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, prays to Apollo for help after Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army, has refused to return his kidnapped daughter. In response, Apollo inflicts a plague upon the Greeks. Agamemnon returns Chryses’s daughter, but demands Chryses’s second kidnapped daughter, who is held by Achilles, in exchange.

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