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Harpies Attacking Aeneas and His Companions
Domenico Gargiuli (Micco Spadaro) (Italian, 1609-c. 1675)
n.d.
- Medium
- Pen and iron gall ink on cream laid paper
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions
- 19.1 × 26.6 cm (7 9/16 × 10 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Adult profiles and older: its museum's description or title mentions violence, death or gore. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Sometimes called Micco Spadaro because his father was a sword smith, Domenico Gargiulo had a gestural style of drawing figures and excelled in historical subjects such as this scene from Virgil’s Aeneid. The epic poem about the founding of Rome follows the wanderings of Aeneas, an Odysseus-like character who escaped the destruction of Troy by the Greek army. Here altars of stolen sacrifices attract the attention of a swarm of fearsome harpies—half bird, half woman—who shriek for vengeance.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
