Hero and Leander (1893–94): Art, History and Details

Hero and Leander (1893–94) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Aristide Maillol (French, 1861–1944).

The work and its context

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

Maillol executed Hero and Leander just as he was becoming acquainted with Paul Gauguin, whose contemporaneous woodcuts must have influenced this work. However, unlike Gauguin, Maillol filled the entire surface with intricate detail and pattern. Leander lived on the Asian side of the Hellespont, the strait which separates Asia and Europe. His lover, Hero, lived on the opposite shore. Each night Leander swam across the strait to visit Hero, but one evening during a storm he drowned, the waves bearing his body to the European shore. When Hero learned of his death, she cast herself into the sea and perished.

Object facts

• Title: Hero and Leander
• Date: 1893–94
• Creator attribution: Aristide Maillol (French, 1861–1944)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: wood engraving
• Collection: PR - Woodcut
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1992.343

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1992.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38–79.

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.