Ajax in the Grave

Jacob Wilhelm Mechau

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing is a most impressive example of Mechau's mature style and can be dated to the end of the eighteenth century, when the artist's compositions were moving away from the influence of Claude Lorrain, who generally treated the human element in his landscapes as mere staffage. Here, the towering trees are given no greater importance than the scene depicted underneath. The subject of the drawing is explained by a 1785 poem by the German poet and philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), inscribed on the back of the sheet, probably in the artist's own hand. A cowardly Phrygian soldier, who only dares to threaten the Trojan hero Ajax when he is dead and buried, jumps backward when Ajax shouts to him from his grave. It is not known for what purpose the drawing was made. A drawing by Mechau at the Albertina, Vienna, is also inscribed with a poem by Herder.

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