Helen of Troy

Frederick Sandys

Date: c. 1867

Materials: Black, red and white chalk

Sultry stare

This dramatic study holds an intermediate place between the illustration 'Helen and Cassandra' and the oil painting 'Helen of Troy', now at the Walker Art Gallery,Liverpool. In this, Sandys switches Helen's sultry stare from right to left, and gives fuller prominence to her cascading tresses, eliminating any background.

Aspects of womanhood

Sandys's Helen is a full-blooded femme fatale of a type with which he was to become increasingly associated in the public mind, especially after the appearance of 'Medea' at the Royal Academy in 1869.

Writing in 1896, the critic Esther Wood summed up the popular conception of his work: "No modern artist has portrayed so fearlessly the malignant aspects of womanhood. From the great warrior-wives of Greece and Rome to the witch-like enchantresses of medieval lore, he covers the whole gamut of unscrupulous passion, and paints the traitress, the seducer, and the murderess in every phase of jealousy, fury, and desperate revenge".