Fingal Mourning Over the Body of Malvina, from Ossian's Berrathon
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (French, 1767-1824)
c. 1810
- Medium
- Black chalk with brush and black ink and brown wash, heightened with white gouache, on ivory laid paper prepared with a gray wash
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions
- 18.4 × 25.7 cm (7 1/4 × 10 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Celia and David Hilliard in honor of Jay Clarke
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The dazzling, otherworldly, glow-in-the-dark effect Girodet achieved in this drawing is a testament to his extraordinary skill as a draftsman and painter, and to his all-consuming desire to be original. Girodet illustrates a scene from a poem purportedly written by the ancient Scottish bard, Ossian, whose work was “discovered” and published in the 1760s. A famous literary hoax, the poems took Europe by storm. Here, Ossian’s father Fingal stands before the body of the dead Malvina, while her spirit ascends from the moonlit water behind him. Above Malvina’s body, spirits sparkle like stars.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
