Jean Tassel. The Sacrifice of Iphigenia

This painting by the 17th-century French artist Jean Tassel is, according to the museum, the only work by this master in Russian museums. Its subject comes from Greek myth: the fleet bound for Troy was held at Aulis by a calm, and the seer Calchas declared that the angered goddess Artemis could be appeased only by the sacrifice of Iphigenia, daughter of King Agamemnon. According to the myth, at the last moment Artemis took pity on the girl, replaced her on the altar with an animal and carried her off to Tauris.

Tassel (c. 1608–1667) worked in his native Langres, where his father and grandfather had also been painters. He is recorded in Rome in 1634; his art combined lessons from Caravaggio, from the Bolognese masters Domenichino and Guido Reni, and from Parisian painters. He was a provincial master with a recognisable, graceful and poetic manner.

The painting is dated to the second half of the 1650s – 1660s. Oil on canvas.