Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Tantalus. Ixion, Sysiphus

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Thomas Rowlandson
1756-1827

Tantalus. Ixion, Sysiphus

Published

[London] : [Pub 29th Decr. 1783, by W. Humphrey, 227 Strand], [1783]

etching :
sheet: 96 x 68 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 3271
Notes
Attributed to Thomas Rowlandson. Cf. British Museum online catalog.
Individual image removed from a larger print entitles "Two new sliders for the state magic lanthern", consisting of a series of ten images in two rows, presented as two magic lantern "sliders" (long slides containing multiple images to be successively pushed or slid before the lens); this being number ten of ten numbered panels.
Provenance

Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.

Summary

Print shows a scene in Hades; water on the left, from which rises a rock or mountain (right); the background is composed of flames, in the smoke of which is the figure of a minute demon. The head and shoulders of Burke (left) as Tantalus appear from the water. Fox (a fox) as Ixion is bound to the centre of a wheel. North as Sisyphus climbs up the rock, pushing before him a spherical boulder.

Associated names
Humphrey, William, ca. 1740-ca. 1810, publisher.
Peel, Robert, 1788-1850, former owner.
Classification
Department
Century prints