Drawing Illustrating Act III, Scene V of Racine's Mithridate

This design for a book illustration is the Morgan's first work by the French neoclassical artist Peyron, a rival of Jacques Louis David. It is for one of the triumphs of luxury book publishing during the era, a three-volume edition of the works of Racine, with full-page illustrations each of for the six included plays, each play being illustrated by the same artist for consistency. The Morgan preserves a copy of Didot's publication (of which only 250 examples were printed) in the Gordon Ray Collection (PML 140193-195), as well as three other preparatory drawings, two by Antoine-Denis Chaudet, one for "Esther" (inv. 2002.12) and the other for "Athalie" (inv. 2002.13), and one by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson for "Phèdre" (inv. 1997.3).