Coriolanus Taking Leave of his Family

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson

National Gallery of Art

This is a painting featuring multiple people in an interior setting. To the left of the center, a bearded man stands, wearing a long red robe draped over a yellow shirt or tunic. His body faces us, but his head is turned to the right, where he gestures with one outstretched hand. In front of him, a crying child in a pale blue robe has his back to us and grabs the man's other wrist. The standing man is gesturing towards a seated woman the right, who has her head resting on one hand, a tear falling down her face and her eyes closed. She is wearing a white dress with a yellow shawl that drapes over her blonde hair and down her back. A naked crying child stands between her legs, clinging on to her arm. On the far right is a second seated woman who wears a red dress with a similar yellow shawl. This woman has dark brown hair, and she looks up towards the standing man from under furrowed brows. She, too, is crying. Her left arm rests on a table behind her which is draped with a blue cloth. On top of this table is an ornate silver helmet with a red interior and a large silver plume topped with red. On the far left, two men stand in front of a green curtain. One of them is turned away from the central man and has his head in his hands. He wears a blue robe. The other man has a dark beard, and he looks toward the central man, his brows furrowed and eyes wide. He wears a light purple tunic with an orange cloth over it. All of the people in the painting have pale skin. The ground beneath the people is made of rectangles of blue-gray stone, and the walls are light blue, with the plaster or paint chipped in places to reveal brown bricks. On the right, beyond the table with the helmet, there is an opening into another room. To the left of this opening is a short white column with a small reddish-brown statue of a wolf on it. In the upper left corner is an arched opening that leads outside, where another cluster of people is visible, along with white buildings, olive green trees, a tall gray mountain, and a cloudy sky in shades of yellow, orange, and pale purple.