The Fight Between Ulysses and Irus

Jan Muller

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Muller made six engravings after Cornelis; and, impressions of four are in the Met. In addition to the present work they include Cain Killing Abel (56.597.4), Arion on a Dolphin (56.597.5) and The Three Fates Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos (56.597.7). The Fight Between Ulysses and Irus illustrates an event from Book 18 of the epic poem of Homer, The Odyssey. Finally returning to Ithaca after years of wandering, Ulysses discovers that his wife Penelope is besieged by suitors who, believing he was dead, wish to marry her. Disguised as a beggar, Ulysses goes to see her and is challenged to a fight by Irus, a drunken tramp and companion of the suitors. Ulysses easily defeats Irus, and Muller shows him as he is decribed by Homer; a nude figure, standing victorious over the body of his opponent, his back to the viewer putting on full display: "his big rippling thighs – his boxer’s broad shoulders, his massive chest and burly arms."

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art