Achilles Among the Daughters of Lycomedes

Artists

Description

This Brussels tapestry depicts Achilles Among the Daughters of Lycomedes. The scene shows Ulysses dressed as a street vendor selling jewelry and other wares to Lycomedes' daughters, including Achilles who is disguised as one of them. Achilles has turned his attention to a gauntlet and a small explosive, while the real women admire the jewelry. The closest textual source for this image is Boccaccio's Genealogia deorum (available in French translation from 1498 on), which recounts that Ulysses disguised himself as a merchant in order to identify Achilles who was disguised as one of Lycomedes' daughter (McGrath). One well-known, later example of the same subject is Rubens' tapestry from the Life of Achilles series, dated to the mid seventeenth-century (although in our example the tapestry belongs to a Life of Ulysses series). Despite the antique subject matter, the figures are attired in contemporary courtly costumes.

Dimensions

261.6 x 264.2 cm (103 x 104 in.)

Provenance

Mrs. Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York, gift; to Fogg Art Museum, 1950