Aeneas Fleeing with Anchises from the Ruins of Troy

Art Historical Context

Augustin Pajou’s drawing captures a pivotal moment from Virgil’s *Aeneid*, showing the Trojan hero Aeneas carrying his aged father Anchises from their burning city. Created in 1777, the work reflects the-eighteenth-century fascination with classical antiquity that defined the emerging Neoclassical movement. Pajou, best known as a sculptor to the French court, used this mythological subject to explore themes of filial duty and heroic resolve that resonated deeply in Enlightenment-era France. Executed in red chalk over faint graphite lines on laid paper, the drawing reveals Pajou’s mastery of sculptural form even on a two-dimensional surface. The warm, velvety strokes allow him to model muscular tension and flowing drapery with remarkable clarity, suggesting the composition may have served as a study for a future marble or terracotta group. Measuring just over twelve by seventeen inches, the sheet demonstrates how artists of the period used intimate, portable media to refine grand narrative ideas before committing them to more permanent materials. Today housed in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Prints and Drawings collection, the work offers viewers a glimpse into the creative process behind Neoclassical storytelling. Its balanced composition and emotional focus continue to invite contemplation of both ancient legend and the enduring human values it embodies.

About the Artist

Augustin Pajou · 1730–1809

Augustin Pajou (1730–1809) was one of the foremost French sculptors of the second half of the eighteenth century, whose long and distinguished career bridged the Rococo grace of the Ancien Régime and the more sober classicizing spirit that emerged in the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. Born in Paris into a family with artistic connections — his father was an ornamental sculptor — Pajou showe...