The education of Achilles

Barry, James (1741-1806)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

ca. 1772

Height:

102.9 cm  (40 1/2 in.)

Width:

128.9 cm  (50 3/4 in.)

Technique / Medium:

oil on canvas

Description

This painting presents an Homeric episode with the centaur Chiron teaching Achilles how to play a lyre with a plectrum; the figures are in a wooded area with a mother and child visible in the distant background, and Achilles' shield on the ground. A large stone herm of Minerva is beside them, with a Greek inscription which translates as 'All things: one and in one', inspired by a passage in Plutarch's treatise 'Of Isis and Osiris' (see essay by Pressly).

Iconclass

92L72
single-named centaurs
92L72151
Chiron as instructor
95A(ACHILLES)8
(story of ) Achilles - attributes
95A(ACHILLES)1231
the education of Achilles by Chiron
94F8323
the shield of Achilles
48CC7321
lyre, cithara - CC - out of doors
92C27
specific aspects, allegorical aspects of Minerva; Minerva as patroness

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Lyre [3501] (4 strings)

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

Bibliographic references

Pressly, William L. "Elysium's elite: Barry's continuing meditations on the Society of Arts Murals", Cultivating the human faculties: James Barry (1741-1806) and the Society of Arts, ed. by Susan Bennett (Bethlehem : Lehigh University Press, 2008) 107.

Notes

Extensive bibliography related to this work available on museum website (image link 1).

RIdIM record id

6237