Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Alcestis.
The gallery
Hercules Wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis
Frederic Leighton, c. 1869-1871
Oil on canvas by Frederic Leighton, now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. It depicts the climax of the Alcestis myth as dramatized by Euripides: Alcestis lies pale and lifeless after dying in place of her husband Admetus, while at the right Heracles grapples bodily with the winged figure of Death (Thanatos) to wrench her back from the grave. Leighton's painting inspired Robert Browning's poem 'Balaustion's Adventure,' which retells the same rescue.
Alceste mourante (The Dying Alcestis)
Jean-François Pierre Peyron, 1785
Neoclassical oil painting by Jean-François Pierre Peyron in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Alcestis, queen of Pherae, sinks dying among her grieving family, having volunteered to surrender her own life so that her husband Admetus might be spared the death fated to him. Painted as a pendant to David's 'Death of Socrates,' it became a touchstone of late-eighteenth-century French history painting on the theme of self-sacrifice.
The Death of Alcestis
Angelica Kauffmann, 1790
Oil painting by the Swiss Neoclassical artist Angelica Kauffmann depicting the deathbed of Alcestis. The scene captures the moment of her sacrificial farewell, surrounded by her mourning husband Admetus and their children, as she gives up her life to ransom his. The subject, drawn from Euripides' tragedy, allowed Kauffmann to dwell on the virtue and conjugal devotion that made Alcestis a model of the faithful wife in antiquity.
Sarcophagus of C. Junius Euhodus and Metilia Acte (Admetus and Alcestis)
Unknown, 161-170 AD
Roman marble sarcophagus carved with scenes from the myth of Admetus and Alcestis, made for the couple C. Junius Euhodus and Metilia Acte and now in the Museo Chiaramonti of the Vatican Museums (from Ostia Antica). The relief unfolds the story across its front, including Alcestis's death and her return from the underworld, with the deceased couple's own faces given to the mythological pair so that their marriage might be likened to that of Alcestis and Admetus, the ancient exemplars of spousal love and self-sacrifice.