Art, literature & history
Cléombrote and Léonidas
c. 1795
- Dating
- Approximate date range
- Held at
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Medium
- Pen and black and brown ink, with brush and brown wash and touches of blue gouache, over red chalk, heightened with white gouache, on blue laid paper, laid down on gray laid paper
- Collection no.
- 1996.27
- Attribution
- By the artist
- Image rights
- CC0 1.0License details
François-Xavier Fabre. Cléombrote and Léonidas. Art Institute of Chicago. CC0 1.0. Compressed full-frame reproduction.
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
About this artwork
Cléombrote and Léonidas — François-Xavier Fabre. c. 1795.
Medium: Pen and black and brown ink, with brush and brown wash and touches of blue gouache, over red chalk, heightened with white gouache, on blue laid paper, laid down on gray laid paper. Dimensions: .
Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
In the wake of the French Revolution, painting commissions were few, but polished drawings had a market. This work illustrates a scene from Plutarch’s series of biographies of famous men in which the Spartan king Léonidas spares the life of his traitorous son-in-law Cléombrote, exiling him from Sparta. After pleading for her husband’s life, the king’s daughter Chilonis departs with her banished husband and their two children.
Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.