Captive Andromache
Frederic Leighton, 1888
Captive Andromache is an oil painting by Frederic Leighton, dated to around 1888, drawing its subject from Homer's Iliad. It shows Andromache, the figure associated with Hector, in a setting inspired by classical antiquity, surrounded by vessels of ancient Greece. Among them appears a hydria, a water jar, which serves as a reference to the Greek material culture the painter wished to evoke. The large, horizontal format, almost four metres wide, allows a spacious composition in which the figure and the objects share the space with a sense of calm. The scene conveys stillness and melancholy rather than action, and much of its appeal lies there. Manchester City Council bought the work from the artist in 1889 for £4,000, and it now hangs in Manchester Art Gallery, where it can be seen as an example of late nineteenth-century history and mythological painting.
- Painter
- Frederic Leighton
- Date
- 1888
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 197 × 407 cm
- Museum
- Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester
- Movement
- Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
- Genre
- mythological painting
- Depicts
- Andromache, Greek vases, hydria
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