Artist/Maker: Benjamin West (1738-1820)
Created: 1797
Origin/Purchase: London
Materials: pen and brown ink, brown wash, and blue and white gouache on brown prepared paper
Dimensions: 31.8 × 46 (12 1/2 × 18 1/2 in.)
Provenance: Benjamin West to General Thaddeus Kosciuszko, June 1797; General Kosciuszko to Thomas Jefferson until 1826; by descent to Ellen and Joseph Coolidge; to a private collection; by sale at Christie's New York, January 7, 1981, to Paul Magriel; by sale to Hirschl & Adler Galleries; to the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1984
Historical Notes: Benjamin West, the American-born painter who forged a brilliant career in London, was represented by two works in Jefferson's collection, The Prodigal Son (unlocated) done in the polyplasiasmos manner and what Jefferson referred to as "Hector and Andromache." The subject is based on the sixth book of Homer's Iliad and shows Hector bidding good-bye to his wife, Andromache, and young child, Astyanax, who is frightened by his father's helmet.[1] West painted two paintings, both lost, of this subject. In his Catalogue of Paintings Jefferson described it as "Hector and Andromache, in water colours, an original by West. The scene is their meeting in Homer 6.494 &c. Given by West to Genl. Kosciuszko, and by him to Th.J."[2] West signed the watercolor at the the top left, "From Benj.n West esq/to Genl Kosciusko/London June 10th./1797."
The accomplished Fright of Astyanax was a gift on June 10, 1797, from the artist to General Kosciuszko, the Polish nobleman who volunteered for service and became one of Washington's best officers. Trained in military studies in Poland and France, Kosciuszko strengthened the immature Revolutionary army. He was on his way to America when he met West in London. In Philadelphia during the winter of 1798, he met Jefferson, who was then vice president. Kosciuszko presented him with West's watercolor drawing before he returned to Europe in May 1798.[3]
Jefferson noted in his Catalogue of Paintings that the watercolor was exhibited on the lowest tier in the Parlor, although a descendant reported that it was hung in the Dining Room on the right side of the arch to the Tea Room. After Jefferson's death the drawing was held back from sale at the Harding Gallery in 1833 by Ellen Coolidge, who wrote her mother, "I kept back the Ariadne ... Hector & Andromache & the soap-stone Indian, because I thought it a pity to sacrifice them as the others were sacrificed."[4]
- Text from Stein, Worlds, 150
