Orestes
John
Singer
Sargent
-- American painter
1922–25
Museum
of
Fine
Arts, Boston
Colonnade
Stairway
Side Aisle mural
Near the Rotunda
Oil on
canvas
347.98
x
317.5 cm (137
x 125 in.)
Francis
Bartlett Donation
of 1912 and Picture
Fund
25.645
Jpg: MFA
Here we see Orestes
haunted by Furies,
the goddesses of vengeance.
From:
World Book
Online
Americas Edition
Orestes, in Greek
mythology, was
the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, the rulers of Mycenae, or Argos.
Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus, killed Agamemnon after he
returned
from the Trojan War. Fearing that Orestes was also in danger, his
sister
Electra sent him from the royal palace.
When Orestes was
grown
up, the god
Apollo ordered him to avenge his father's death by killing
Clytemnestra.
Orestes returned home and killed his mother and Aegisthus. He then was
driven insane by the Furies, the goddesses of vengeance. Orestes
finally
went to Athens. There, a jury found him innocent of manslaughter and
freed
him from his guilt and the Furies. Orestes later married Hermione, the
daughter of Helen of Troy and Menelaus, the king of Sparta.
("Orestes," World
Book
Online Americas
Edition, http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com, June 8, 2001.)
Notes:
Provenance:
The artist;
commissioned by the MFA in 1921 and installed on ceiling side aisle,
Huntington Avenue stairway, 1925.
- See the year
in
review 1922
Stairway
Ceiling Decorations
Looking
straight up
Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston
|
