Andromache and Pyrrhus
Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774-1833) · 1810
Andromache, the widow of Hector, kneels with her small son Astyanax in her arms at the feet of Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus who holds them captive. Seated on his throne, Pyrrhus stretches out a hand towards her while addressing a young man in Greek dress at the lower right, Orestes, who has come to demand the boy's death. At the back left a woman runs forward with her arm outstretched and her face turned to the scene: Hermione, the princess Pyrrhus has promised to marry and now neglects. The figures are arranged across the canvas like actors on a stage.
Guérin took his subject from Racine's tragedy Andromaque rather than from Homer, and the painting has the clarity of a well lit performance: strong contrasts of light and shadow, sculptural drapery, faces fixed in grief, resolve and jealousy. He signed and dated it at the lower right in eighteen ten and showed it at the Salons of eighteen ten and eighteen fourteen. The state acquired it on the fifteenth of May eighteen twenty two for ten thousand francs. It hung at the Luxembourg museum before coming to the Louvre. Guérin was the teacher of Géricault and Delacroix.
Did You Know? The scene is not from Homer but from Racine: Guérin painted the tragedy Andromaque as if he were staging it at the Comédie-Française.
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