# Phaedre, Having Declared Her Passion, Attempts to Kill Herself with the Sword of Hippolytus

- By: Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (French, 1767-1824)
- Date: c. 1801
- Medium: Pen and brush and black and brown wash and graphite, heightened with white gouache on cream laid paper
- Classification: Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions: 34.5 × 24.2 cm (13 5/8 × 9 9/16 in.)
- Culture: France
- Credit line: Major Acquisitions Centennial Endowment
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/147061)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/e1b56660-b4ad-f200-2488-bef5c4ebdc13/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Adult profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This drawing of a scene from the tragedy Phaedra was for a deluxe edition of the plays of the French dramatist Jean Racine (1639–1699) illustrated by Jacques-Louis David’s pupil Girodet. The moment depicted is Phaedra’s attempted suicide after her stepson, Hippolytus, rejects her amorous advances. About his drawings for the plays of Racine, Girodet wrote: “It is wrong that drawings are seen as mere drawings; they demand the same conception and almost as much study as a painting.”

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0