The Sacrifice of Iphigenia

Author: Albert J. Elen

This is one of only two surviving mythological subjects drawn by Aertsen; the other, The Sacrifice of Perseus, is in the Louvre.¹ Depicted is the principal scene from the tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis, written shortly before his death by the Greek dramatist Euripides (c. 484-406 BC), one of the three founders of ancient Greek theatre. It was the first part of a trilogy, also including Alkmaion in Corinth (not preserved) and Bakchai. The play was first performed posthumously in Macedonia – Euripides went there in the last year of his long life – at the Dionysia, festivities in honor of the god Dionysius, earning a first prize.

Iphigenia was the eldest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, king of Mycenae (Argos) and leader of the allied Greek armies. An oracle predicted that she was to be sacrificed to placate Artemis (Diana), goddess of the hunt, who felt insulted by Agamemnon killing one of her stags and, as a reprisal, had caused the wind to cease preventing the Greek fleet to sail out to Troy. Agamemnon, refusing this ultimate personal sacrifice, was put under pressure by his rebellious troops and finally agreed. Clytemnestra was lured by her husband to bring their daughter to the port city of Aulis to marry Achilles, one of the leaders of the allied Greek forces. When this deception became clear, a large turmoil broke out, Achilles protesting, but Iphigenia decided to prove herself a loving daughter and be dutifully sacrificed. Here we see King Agamemnon raising his sword to run his daughter through. The third dramatis persona, Clytemnestra, is swooning between her servants on the left, standing male figures with their raised hands clasped above their heads in distress. On the right three more kneeling women looking downward and covering their faces, two standing figures moving away, one looking back over his shoulder. A sacrificial table, resting on ornamental legs with winged creatures, is placed right in front of the two main characters. The smoke from the fire, very convincingly rendered, dominates the upper part of the composition, where the landscape background is merely indicated by some lines. It literally covers up what actually happens only seconds before the deadly stitch of the sword: Iphigenia is miraculously saved by Artemis who makes her invisible and disappear. In stead of Iphigenia a deer is sacrificed on the altar. Thus Artemis is satisfied and a favorable wind allows the fleet to depart. Artemis then sends a messenger to Clytemnestra to inform her of her daughter’s rescue. Iphigenia is transported to Tauris, where she becomes high priestess of Artemis. Her family is to suffer more disaster, both her parents being killed in the revengeful aftermath.

This drawing was unknown and unpublished until it was first described and illustrated in the 2006 stock catalogue of art dealer Nicolaas Teeuwisse in Berlin. The draughtsman was easily identified by Teeuwisse, his attribution confirmed by Marijn Schapelhouman and Wouter Kloek, as it is a typical work of Aertsen. His drawings, which number only nineteen, are characterized by their smooth, elegant style and the particular way in which hands and faces are depicted, with pointed fingers and noses.² The outlines of the elongated, mannerist figures are drawn in uninterrupted, undulating lines and the more so is the smoke rising from the fire on the sacrificial altar. The shaded areas in both the figures and the background are indicated by parallel hatching. The swirling drawing style, referred to as ‘stringy way of drawing’ (‘draderige manier van tekenen’) by Kloek, is characteristic for a number of drawings by Aertsen.³ According to Kloek the stylistic differences are due to the fact that they are not all by Aertsen himself and some have probably been made in his style by workshop assistants. The Rotterdam drawing is unmistakably autograph and is stylistically close to Aertsen’s design drawing (representing a Mercy Seat) for a stained-glass window, now in Dresden, which is dated by Dittrich after Aertsen’s return to Amsterdam in 1555.⁴ The similarities are most apparent in the parallel hatchings in the shadowed areas, the plasticity of the pen lines in the hands and faces (compare the heads of Agamemnon and God the Father which are very close in the rendering of pose and details), the frayed edges of the robes and the way of representing the smoke from the altar and God the Father hovering.⁵ The Rotterdam drawing differs from the Dresden sheet in the lack of additional washes and squaring.

Most of Aertsen’s drawings were not an end in themselves. Probably, they were made as designs for paintings (including triptychs) or stained-glass windows (monumental windows as well as small glass panels), some perhaps even as vidimus and final working drawings. By additional squaring some drawings were also used to transfer the composition to scale to panel, canvas or glass.⁶ For which particular purpose the Rotterdam drawing has served is not clear; in view of its format (stretched horizontal) and type of representation it does not seem to be a design for a painting or a stained-glass window and it could only have been a design for a print which eventually was not engraved. However, no designs for prints are known by Aertsen. Thus it can only be an independent drawing, made to be sold or as a gift for a special occasion.