Aeneas Leaving the Burning City of Troy

Unknown artist · n.d.

Medium

Pen and black ink, with brush and brown and gray wash, heightened with white gouache, over traces of black chalk, on tan laid paper, laid down on ivory laid paper

Original size

28.7 × 61.3 cm (11 5/16 × 24 3/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

This dramatic work captures one of antiquity's most charged moments — the Trojan hero Aeneas carrying his aged father Anchises from the flames as Troy collapses behind them. The drawing is executed with considerable technical ambition: pen and black ink establish the composition's firm contours, while layered washes of brown and gray conjure smoke, shadow, and the flickering chaos of a city in its final hours. White gouache heightens the figures against the dark, giving the scene an almost theatrical luminosity. Though the artist remains unidentified, the confident handling of wash and the sophisticated use of tonal contrast point to a trained draughtsman working within the European Old Master tradition, likely as a study or preparatory work for a larger composition. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this piece among its works on paper, where the fragility of the medium — ink and wash on laid paper — makes direct study a rare privilege. A hand-painted oil reproduction translates those qualities into a more durable and displayable form, interpreting the tonal drama and compositional energy of the original through brushwork that honours the sweep and intensity the unknown artist achieved with ink and wash.