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Lot Essay
The present drawing is an early study for West’s seminal painting, Pylades and Orestes Brought as Victims before Iphigenia, 1766. Painted soon after West’s arrival in England in 1763, it was the first of his works to enter a public collection, when it was bequeathed to The National Gallery in 1826 by Sir George Beaumont. In 1929 it was transferred to the Tate Gallery and is now on view at Tate Britain.
The subject is based on Euripides' tragedy, Iphigenia in Tauris and depicts the moment when Pylades and Orestes are apprehended in their search for the statue of Diana. They are led as captives to be offered as a sacrifice to the goddess and brought before the priestess Iphigenia; they are saved as she later discovers Orestes is her brother. The painting created a sensation amongst critics, becoming a landmark not only in West’s art but in the emergence of English neo-classicism.
This spirited drawing is the only known compositional study for the painting. It shows West experimenting with various compositional elements such as the placement of the statue of Diana which appears both near the sacrificial altar and further behind in the background, the latter position seen in the finished work. There are other notable differences: the faces of Pylades, Orestes and the shepherd are lightly bearded in the drawing and beardless in the finished work and Iphigenia’s arm is raised commandingly in the drawing and lowered in the painting while the woman beside her reaches out to the captives. Two other single figure studies of Pylades and Orestes are the only other known related drawings (see von Erffa and Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, Yale, 1986, illus., p. 42). The present drawing gives us a key insight into the genesis of one of West’s most important paintings.
We are grateful to Professor Allen Staley for his help with this catalogue entry.
The subject is based on Euripides' tragedy, Iphigenia in Tauris and depicts the moment when Pylades and Orestes are apprehended in their search for the statue of Diana. They are led as captives to be offered as a sacrifice to the goddess and brought before the priestess Iphigenia; they are saved as she later discovers Orestes is her brother. The painting created a sensation amongst critics, becoming a landmark not only in West’s art but in the emergence of English neo-classicism.
This spirited drawing is the only known compositional study for the painting. It shows West experimenting with various compositional elements such as the placement of the statue of Diana which appears both near the sacrificial altar and further behind in the background, the latter position seen in the finished work. There are other notable differences: the faces of Pylades, Orestes and the shepherd are lightly bearded in the drawing and beardless in the finished work and Iphigenia’s arm is raised commandingly in the drawing and lowered in the painting while the woman beside her reaches out to the captives. Two other single figure studies of Pylades and Orestes are the only other known related drawings (see von Erffa and Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, Yale, 1986, illus., p. 42). The present drawing gives us a key insight into the genesis of one of West’s most important paintings.
We are grateful to Professor Allen Staley for his help with this catalogue entry.