Orestes Pursued by the Furies

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This is an oil painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1862. This original piece is currently displayed in the Chrysler Museum of Art and an image of it is displayed on their website https://chrysler.emuseum.com/objects/27206/orestes-pursued-by-the-furies.

In this scene from an ancient Greek tragedy, Orestes avenges his father by murdering his own mother. Even before her body hits the ground, the mythological spirits of vengeance known as the Furies have overwhelmed the guilty son. By pitting Orestes’ nude body against the hideous trio swarming around him, William Bouguereau set the bar for late 19th-century academic painters. His use of classical figures to animate strikingly dramatic scenes won him both commercial success and critical recognition as the grand master of the French art establishment.

Download image “Orestes Pursued by the Furies”
  • type
    Image
  • created on
  • file format
    jpg
  • file size
    71 KB
  • creator
    Adolphe-William Bouguereau
  • credit
    Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
  • original publisher
    Adolphe-William Bouguereau
  • original publisher place
    France
  • publisher
    Chrysler Museum of Art
  • publisher place
    Norfolk, VA
  • rights
    Low-resolution images of works in the Museum collection may be downloaded for study, personal, and educational use directly from the Chrysler website: chrysler.emuseum.com
  • rights holder
    Chrysler Museum of Art
  • rights territory
    US