Eurybates and Talthybios Lead Briseis to Agamemmon

Vicenza, 1757. Giustino Valmarana hired Giambattista Tiepolo, back from three years frescoing the prince-bishop's palace at Wurzburg, to paint the rooms of a modest country house on a hillside above the town. Each room got a different epic. This is the room of the Iliad, and the scene is the quarrel the poem opens with. Agamemnon has claimed Achilles' prize for himself, and two heralds, Eurybates and Talthybios, walk the girl Briseis across the Greek camp to him. Agamemnon stands with his back to us in a plumed helmet, so the whole scene is read past him. The painted columns and cornice framing the opening are by Gerolamo Mengozzi Colonna, the specialist in architectural illusion who worked alongside Tiepolo for decades. Five years after finishing here Tiepolo left for Madrid to work for Charles III, and he died there in 1770.