Public data from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Learn more
About the Artwork
Although he identified himself first and foremost as a sculptor, John Flaxman’s greatest fame and most lasting influence rest with his drawings. Engravings made after his spare designs illustrating classical epics by Homer, Dante, and Hesiod became the most celebrated work in his oeuvre and spread his stylized linearity widely. This highly finished, signed and dated drawing was made while Flaxman was in Rome and needed to supplement his income while trying to obtain commissions for sculpture. Flaxman chose an obscure classical subject: the famous Trojan shepherd, Paris, with his first love, the nymph Oenone. The scene takes place on Mount Ida, in an idyllic time of peace before Paris was called upon to judge the beauty of the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, thus instigating the Trojan War.
Inscriptions
signed and dated, in black ink, at lower left: Flaxman, Roma / 1791
Provenance
?-?: Marquis de Lagoy [1764-1829; L. 1710] ?-?: By repute, from a member of the William Randolph Hearst family ?-?: (Alexander Acevedo, Alexander Gallery, New York, NY) ?-?: Private Collector, New York, NY ?-2008: (Monroe Warshaw, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) 2008-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- John Flaxman (British, 1755–1826)
- Date
- 1791
- Medium
- brush and gray wash with pen and pale gray-black ink with graphite and brown ink
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 30.3 x 48.8 cm (11 15/16 x 19 3/16 in.); Secondary Support: 35.1 x 53.6 cm (13 13/16 x 21 1/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Accession no.
- 2008.35
More by John Flaxman in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011177
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