Clytemnestra Hesitates before Killing the Sleeping Agamemnon

In January 1834 the satirical weekly La Caricature printed a lithograph its readers could decode at a glance. A curtain splits the room. On one side King Louis-Philippe pushes a National Guardsman forward, and on the other Liberty sleeps in her Phrygian cap. The joke worked because everyone knew the original, this canvas by Guérin, shown at the Salon of 1817 and bought for the king two years later for 12,000 francs.

Here the story is Greek. Agamemnon, home from Troy, sleeps bare-chested with his weapons laid out beside him. His wife Clytemnestra stands in profile at the entrance with a dagger, and her lover Aegisthus leans in behind her, pushing her on. Between them and the king hangs a translucent red curtain glowing with candlelight, and she stands against it as a dark silhouette.