Automedon with the Horses of Achilles by Henri Regnault. French, 1868. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine
Automedon with the Horses of Achilles by Henri Regnault. French, 1868. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.From the MFA:Regnault’s painting illustrates a story from Homer’s Iliad. Automedon, chariot driver for the Greek warrior Achilles, restrains the horses Xanthos (behind) and Balios, two beasts who could predict the future. As Regnault wrote, “the horses, aware that their master [Achilles] is taking them into combat, and that this combat will be the last and will cost him his life, struggle and wrest with the groom who has come to take them from their pasture. One of them, chestnut brown, rises like a great dark phantom, outlining himself against the sky. I wanted to give the picture a foretaste of disaster.” -- source link
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