BARON PIERRE - NARCISSE GUERIN
Paris 1774 - Rome 1833

Clytemnestra And Agamemnon

Oil On Canvas: 76.2 x 83.8 cm (31.75 x 34.92 in)

Signed (with monogram): PG

Exhibited: Salon of 1822 (?)

Our painting, which recalls the work of Fuseli as well as David, depicts the moment when Clytemnestra is about to murder her unsuspecting husband Agamemnon with the aide of her lover Aegisthis. Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, had already murdered Clytemenstra’s first husband, Tantalus, and their baby daughter. Later, after favorably comparing his own prowess as a hunter with that of Artemis, the Goddess becalmed his ships on route to Troy. Told that only the sacrifice of his eldest daughter by Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, would satisfy the angry Artemis, he resolved to kill her. Fortunately she escaped her fate when Artemis substituted her with a stag. Nonetheless, this aggravated the hatred already felt by Clytemenstra. While he was away at the Trojan wars she took a lover, and resolved to murder her husband when she learnt of his intention to bring home Priam’s daughter, Cassandra, as his concubine. Homer tells the tale as a massacre of Agamemnon’s followers by an armed gang led by Aegisthis, but Aeschylus sets the scene in the King’s chamber while he bathes. In Guérin’s composition, Agamemnon slumbers, his weapons laid out beside him, unaware of his imminent death while his assassins creep into his room. Guérin employs a rich palette of burnt orange and crimson to highlight the partially drawn curtain aglow with candlelight. The painting was possibly exhibited in the Salon of 1822.