Hannibal joins Dallas

14/12/24 - Acquisition - Dallas, Meadows Museum - Before marching on Rome, Hannibal visited the temple of Heracles in Cadiz, or more precisely the temple of Melkart in Gades, the remains of which may have been discovered underwater in 2022. The Carthaginian general thus placed himself under the aegis of a hero who was both Greek and Phoenician. This episode was chosen as the subject of a competition held by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in San Fernando, Madrid, in 1766. Luis Paret y Alcázar won first prize, and his red chalk drawing is still in the Academy’s collections at the San Fernando Museum of Fine Arts (ill. 1). The Meadows Museum in Dallas recently purchased a preparatory sketch of the same size from the Terrades gallery, which reveals the artist’s creative process (ill. 2).