The Sacrifice of Polyxena

Giovanni David

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

According to Greek legend, the warrior Achilles fell in love with Polyxena, daughter of King Priam of Troy. She was promised to him in marriage if he agreed to end the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. Achilles was ambushed by Polyxena’s brothers, however, who shot a poisoned arrow in his heel—hence the expression “Achilles heel,” a point of vulnerability. Before he died, Achilles ordered that the treacherous Polyxena (shown in the lower right) be sacrificed at his tomb. The artist made this print in Genoa, where he was patronized by the wealthy Durazzo family. It comes from a series of six depicting scenes from history and literature and dedicated to Countess Durazzo.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art