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Source Description
When the French painter Jacques-Louis David was approached to work on a new edition of Jean Racine’s plays, he passed the task to his pupil Girodet, who excelled at illustrating literature. This highly refined drawing depicts a scene from Racine’s <em>Andromaque,</em> a complicated story of unrequited love and political treachery. Cléone introduces the love-blind Orestes to Hermione, who exploits his affection to make him do her bidding. Girodet skillfully contrasts Orestes’s eagerness and Hermione’s calculating character. With folded arms, she turns away, as if a statue between the columns of a cool marble interior. Yet Hermione’s sly, backward glance alerts the viewer of her cunning manipulation, which eventually drives Orestes mad.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
154305
label
The Meeting of Orestes and Hermione
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
154305
contentType
drawing
title
The Meeting of Orestes and Hermione
description
When the French painter Jacques-Louis David was approached to work on a new edition of Jean Racine’s plays, he passed the task to his pupil Girodet, who excelled at illustrating literature. This highly refined drawing depicts a scene from Racine’s <em>Andromaque,</em> a complicated story of unrequited love and political treachery. Cléone introduces the love-blind Orestes to Hermione, who exploits his affection to make him do her bidding. Girodet skillfully contrasts Orestes’s eagerness and Hermione’s calculating character. With folded arms, she turns away, as if a statue between the columns of a cool marble interior. Yet Hermione’s sly, backward glance alerts the viewer of her cunning manipulation, which eventually drives Orestes mad.
date
c. 1800
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q60759965
creators
1697
genreSpecific
Drawing
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Sheet: 28.5 x 21.8 cm (11 1/4 x 8 9/16 in.)
cul
France, early 19th Century
accession
1989.101
Source extras
tec
pen and brown and black ink, point of brush and brown and gray wash, with black chalk and graphite, heightened with white gouache, on cream wove paper
tombstone
The Meeting of Orestes and Hermione, c. 1800. Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson (French, 1767–1824). Pen and brown and black ink, point of brush and brown and gray wash, with black chalk and graphite, heightened with white gouache, on cream wove paper; sheet: 28.5 x 21.8 cm (11 1/4 x 8 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 1989.101
supportMaterials
description
cream(1) wove paper
collection
DR - French
inscriptions
inscription
signed, lower left, in brown ink: ALG [artist’s monogram] / INV.; lower left, in black chalk: A L GIRODET INV.
didYouKnow
The leg of the table behind Hermione has the form of a siren, a dangerous mythological creature that destroys anyone who hears its song.
citations
citation
<em>Explication des ouvrages de peinture et dessins, sculpture, architecture et gravure, des artistes vivans</em> [sic]. Paris: Imprimerie des sciences et arts, 1800.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 30, no. 170.2
citation
<em>Annales du musée et de l’école moderne des beaux-arts, première collection, tome complémentaire</em>. Paris: C. P. Landon, 1809.
page_number
Mentioned: 71, 162; Reproduced: pl. 45
citation
<em>Catalogue des livres rares, précieux, et très-bien conditionnés, du cabinet de M. Firmin Didot</em>. Paris: De Bure, 1810.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 96
citation
<em>Catalogue de livres imprimés sur vélin</em>. Paris: De Bure, 1824.
page_number
Mentioned: vol. 2, p. 168
citation
Coupin, P. A. <em>Œuvres posthumes de Girodet-Trioson</em>. Paris: Jules Renouard, 1829.
page_number
Mentioned: vol. 1: p. xxxix, lxxviij; vol. 2: p. 343
citation
<em>Collection des livrets des anciennes expositions depuis 1673 jusqu’en 1800: Exposition de 1800</em>. Paris: Liepmannssohn, 1872.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 35, no. 170
citation
<em>L’Illustration en France et en Belgique de 1800 à 1914: Cent livres de la réserve précieuse du musée royal de Mariemont</em>. Exh. cat. Mariemont: Musée royal de Mariemont, 1979.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 11
citation
Osborne, Carol Margot. <em>Pierre Didot the Elder and French Book Illustration, 1789–1822</em>. New York: Garland, 1985.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 37, 120-121, 226
citation
<em>Master Drawings, 1760–1880</em>. Exh. cat. New York: W. M. Brady & Co., 1990.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: no. 17
citation
E. H. T. “The Year in Review: Selections 1989.” <em>The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em> 77, no. 2 (February 1990): 38–78.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 50; Mentioned: p. 74, no. 149
citation
Campbell, Richard J., and Victor Carlson. <em>Visions of Antiquity: Neoclassical Figure Drawings</em>. Exh. cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 37, 216-17, no. 55
citation
DeGrazia, Diane and Carter E. Foster. <em>Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art</em>. Exh. cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 9, 124, 290, no. 48; Reproduced: p. 125
citation
Bellenger, Sylvain, <em>Girodet 1767–1824</em>. Exh. cat. Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2005.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 175n35, 440–41 (ill.), no. 110
citation
Prat, Louis-Antoine. <em>Le Dessin français au XIXe siècle</em>. Paris: Louvre éditions, 2011.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 77
citation
Salsbury, Britany. <em>Nineteenth-Century French Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art</em>. Lewes, UK, Cleveland, Ohio: GILES; Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 66-69, no. 1
creditline
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
updatedAt
2026-05-29 07:58:54.165000
sourceId
154305
dept
Drawings
coll
DR - French
med
pen and brown and black ink, point of brush and brown and gray wash, with black chalk and graphite, heightened with white gouache, on cream wove paper
creatorTags
male
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
e281d9d8cb31400e