Hector taking leave of Andromache: the Fright of Astyanax

Benjamin West

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Inspired by book 6 of the Iliad, West shows the Trojan prince Hector armed to fight the besieging Greeks. His wife Andromache clings to her husband's arm and their infant son shrinks from his father's helmet. Rigorously drawn, and boldly shaded in wash and watercolor, the drawing relates to a painting, now lost, exhibited in 1767. The emotionally charged, antique subject responds to the neoclassical taste that captivated artists and aesthetes in Rome, Paris and London at this period. West--a Pennsylvania Quaker who had moved to London--rose to prominence by mastering the new style.

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