Lot 102
  • 102

Giuseppe Cades

Estimate
70,000 - 90,000 USD
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Description

  • Giuseppe Cades
  • Briseis leaving Achilles' Tent
  • Signed and inscribed in brown ink, lower left: Giuseppe Cadese/Romano

  • Pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk, heightened with white, on light brown paper

Provenance

Sale, New York, Christie's, 30 January 1998, lot 163; acquired at the sale

Literature

M.T. Caracciolo, Giuseppe Cades 1750 - 1799 et la Rome de son temps, Paris 1992, pp. 189 and 238, cat. no. 20B, reproduced

Condition

Mounted and framed in a modern gilded frame. In excellent condition. Laid down. There are a few very tiny tears to the far right of the lower margin, and a few places on the sheet where there are some very small spots of abrasion to the surface (such as near the upper right corner), but these do not affect the image at all. A few tiny spots in the upper parts of the areas of grey wash, but where the brush has caught on faults in the paper, rather than being stains. The ink is still very strong and fresh.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

According to Homer's Iliad, Briseis was the wife of Mynes, and lived in Lyrnessus.  When the town was captured by Achilles during the Trojan War, Mynes was killed, and Achilles took Briseis as his slave.  During the siege of Troy, Agamemnon demanded a war trophy, and ordered his heralds Talthybius and Eryrates to bring Briseis to him.  In this scene, we see the point at which Achilles gives up his slave, catching her by the arm as she leaves his tent for the last time, with Agamemnon's emissaries watching the pair from the shadows. 

Cades drew another version of the scene, which is in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier. That drawing takes a somewhat more violent approach, with the weeping Briseis being restrained by her captors, and Achilles turning away from her to appeal to his companion.  In the present sheet, the physical manifestation of the emotion is more controlled:  the figures are arranged along a horizontal axis, as if to evoke an antique frieze, and therefore the action is internalised, rather than explicit.  Caracciolo compares this technique with a sheet by Cades in the Louvre, depicting Achilles and Patroclus surprised by Ulysses,2 and also with a Winged Victory, which was on the art market in Paris in 1991.3

All three drawings are thought by Caracciolo to date from the 1770s, when Cades was working in Rome alongside artists such as Füssli, Sergel, Gibelin, Moitte and Berthélémy.  During this period Cades often depicted scenes from the Iliad, which may have been inspired by the publication of a new translation of the poem by Melchiorre Cesarotti, whose text was thought to be the most faithful to the original Greek.4 


1.Caracciolo, op.cit, p. 189, cat. no. 20A

2.Caracciolo, op.cit., p. 189, p. 185, cat. no. 16A

3.Caracciolo, op.cit., p. 238, cat. no. 45bis

4.Caracciolo, op.cit , p. 185