Priam Supplicating Achilles for the Body of Hector

Giuseppe Girometti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In The Iliad Homer tells of King Priam of Troy visiting the tent of the Greek hero Achilles to beg him for the body of his eldest son, the great warrior Hector, whom Achilles had killed and then dragged back to his camp. Achilles, attended here by one of his warriors, Automedon or Alcimus, took pity on the old king and ordered the corpse to be bathed and returned to him. Girometti turned again to Bertel Thorvaldsen, this time creating a capital stripped-down version, with several variations, of the sculptor’s marble relief of 1815 at Woburn Abbey. The purplish ground provides a magisterial backdrop for the white figures.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art