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The Sacrifice of Iphigenia

1789
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 643
Using many of the Tiepolos’ compositional innovations, Gandolfi’s painting presents a story related by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. Agamemnon’s daughter is about to be sacrificed to appease the goddess Artemis, who at the climactic moment appears and substitutes a deer on the altar. Daring foreshortening results in an unlikely compression of the figures and a suitably theatrical structure. This oil sketch was preparatory to a ceiling in the Palazzo Gnudi Scagliarini in Bologna. The frame designed for this painting was probably inspired by the plasterwork of the palace for which it was commissioned.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
  • Artist: Gaetano Gandolfi (Italian, San Matteo della Decima 1734–1802 Bologna)
  • Date: 1789
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 26 7/8 × 18 in. (68.3 × 45.7 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 2015
  • Object Number: 2015.46
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Three Female Heads, Gaetano Gandolfi Italian, Pen and brown ink
Three Female Heads
Gaetano Gandolfi
1734–1802
Child Bacchus on a Barrel
Gaetano Gandolfi
1750–1802
The Christ Child sleeping on a cross in a landscape, crown of thorns in the foreground, after Reni, Gaetano Gandolfi Italian, Engraving
The Christ Child sleeping on a cross in a landscape, crown of thorns in the foreground, after Reni
Gaetano Gandolfi
Guido Reni
1765–80
The Adoration of the Shepherds, with God the Father overhead, Gaetano Gandolfi Italian, Engraving
The Adoration of the Shepherds, with God the Father overhead
Gaetano Gandolfi
Niccolò dell' Abate
1754–1802
The Shepherd's Offering: Seventy-three prints engraved by F. Bartolozzi &c. from the Original Pictures and Drawings of Michaelangelo, Domenichino, Annibal, Lodovico, and Agostino Carraci, Guercino, P. da Cortona, Carlo Maratti, Elisabetta Sirani, Pellegrino Tibaldi, Franceschino &c. in the collection of His Majesty, &c., vol. II
Multiple artists/makers
1793–98

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