0373ANCIENTElectra_Ludovisi

ElectraANCIENT_Ludovisi

Aeschylus Choeph., 84-510
Sophocles Electra, passim
Euripides Electra, passim
Apollodorus Libr. Ep.2.169

1st-century BC Roman, Electra and Orestes, Ludovisi Collection, Rome (Museo Altemps).

When Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American novelist, visited the Ludovisi Collection in 1858, his notes recorded his impressions of this piece; but Hawthorne was following Winckleman's interpretation of this group as a depiction of Penelope with Telemachus.

Reading this sculpture group as Electra and Orestes allows insights different from the Naples Orestes-Electra group, since here the two siblings differ considerably in age and Electra seems to control her sibling in peculiar ways.

The Ludovisi Throne is visible in the background.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled forThe Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.