Ajax in the Grave

This drawing is a most impressive example of Mechau's mature style and can be dated to the end of the eighteenth century, when the artist's compositions were moving away from the influence of Claude Lorrain, who generally treated the human element in his landscapes as mere staffage. Here, the towering trees are given no greater importance than the scene depicted underneath. The subject of the drawing is explained by a 1785 poem by the German poet and philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), inscribed on the back of the sheet, probably in the artist's own hand. A cowardly Phrygian soldier, who only dares to threaten the Trojan hero Ajax when he is dead and buried, jumps backward when Ajax shouts to him from his grave. It is not known for what purpose the drawing was made. A drawing by Mechau at the Albertina, Vienna, is also inscribed with a poem by Herder.