Hannibal Swearing Eternal Enmity toward Rome (c. 1808): Art, History and Details

Hannibal Swearing Eternal Enmity toward Rome (c. 1808) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This scene from ancient history shows a moment in the boyhood of the great Carthaginian general Hannibal (247-about 183 bc). While sacrificing to the gods in preparation for a military campaign, Hannibal's father decided to have his son swear an oath to remain the eternal enemy of Rome. At the center of the composition, the nine-year-old Hannibal imitates the gesture and stance of his father, while a bull is sacrificed below. The unknown creator of the scene probably planned to make a larger painting of it because important events from antiquity, such as this one, were typical subjects for the period. In addition, the overall use of pen and brush with white highlights for modeling was a technique frequently used to finalize a composition before realization on a larger scale in oil.

Object facts

• Title: Hannibal Swearing Eternal Enmity toward Rome
• Date: c. 1808
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pen and black and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, and white paint over graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 34.4 x 42.9 cm (13 9/16 x 16 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2008.349

Collection credit

Bequest of Muriel Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.