Achille's drags Hector's body around the walls of Troy

Gaetano Gandolfi painted this one year before his death, depicting the most dramatic episode of the Trojan war described in the Iliad: against the Greek laws that establish respect for the corpses, Achilles disfigures Hector’s body dragging it with his chariot. From the walls of Troy, Andromache, Hector’s wife, assists incredulously to the scene, surrounded by guards. In harmony with the heroic taste represented by the French painter David, the theme is strongly dramatic and the composition recalls the classical friezes.